Stolen Memories
by Runandra
Summary: Companion of Angel's Prayer  sequel of 1001 Nights. Not recommended if you haven't read those since you won't understand a single thing. Kurapika felt like she had traveled eight years to the future...or had she just simply lost her memories?
1. The Missing Eight Years

_**Disclaimer: **__Never mine, and like I've said before: tragic._

_**Setting: **__Somewhere before the Epilogue. _

_**Introduction: **__Kurapika had no idea how she ended up to a time eight years to the future. Wait, wait. If that was the case, then why the hell did she look older than she had to be? Or maybe…instead of time-skipping, she had lost her memories?_

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><p><strong>Part 1<strong>

_**THE MISSING EIGHT YEARS**_

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><p>She looked almost suspiciously at the silver ring adorned with a singular onyx stone sitting meekly on her scarred palm. The scars… She shifted her attention to the scars that seemingly glared at her. Identical scars on her two hands; her hands had been pierced by something and those scars had stubbornly stayed.<p>

But who did it? When did it happen? How? Where?

She pressed shut her eyes as a whirlpool of questions started to flood her weary mind. It was frustrating—no, scratch that; it was _beyond_ that. It was maddening.

Briskly she got up from the bed and darted towards the bathroom. For the moment, she had rented a room in that small inn in the middle of a small town that she did not even recognise. No. In the first place, she did not even know why she was there. When she woke up, the landlady of the inn told her that some townspeople saw her unconscious by the roadside and so they kindly took her to the inn since there were no external injuries on her body.

She splashed cold water to her face in attempt to clear her clouded mind, but it did little. She looked up and stared at her own face. She gnashed her teeth as she looked at the pair of Scarlet Eyes glaring back at her from the mirror in contemptuous glow.

_How did it come to this?_ She thought bitterly.

She did not look her age. She looked older than her supposed age. Her hair was darker than she remembered. Her earring; the last gift from his deceased brother, was missing. She had those abominable scars on her hands and the questionable ring on her ring finger. She was back to her female persona. She could not believe it.

The last time she remembered, she was still in her male—boy—guise, still roughly 17-years-old and had just joined the Nostrad bodyguard team.

* * *

><p>The drumming sounds of his fingers were ever so faint and they were hardly audible, but it was there nonetheless. Resting his chin on the other hand, Kuroro Lucifer stared at the page of the ancient book before him unfocusedly. At the moment he was doing his (part-time) job as Abelard Constantin's researcher, and he was in the duke's grand library; filtering through the numerous books available there. However, his mind was somewhere else.<p>

The day before, he had felt a big shift in her Nen inside him. It ceaselessly squirmed in uneasiness, as if she was in constant agitation. Something had happened, and at first he dismissed the sudden violent shift as her getting into yet another trouble since he knew that she could be reckless at certain times.

But the squirming was not something that he could just disregard. There was this foreboding feeling that came with it.

He knew that Kurapika had gone off for another Hunter mission, but she had told him that it would be a short one. The children had been put in Fino's care for the time being, and Shalnark had been staying there as well. He had no reason to worry for the children. But Kurapika…

DRRRR—!

The train of his thoughts were interrupted rudely by the vibration of his cell phone. One look at the Caller ID, and he answered it in an instant.

"Yes, Shalnark?"

_**[Uh, Danchou…I've got news. Kurapika, she…]**_

Kuroro listened to what Shalnark had to tell him. When Shalnark was done, Kuroro Lucifer was convinced that in the future he might have to trust his instinct more.

* * *

><p>He was blissfully taking a nap in his small office when his alarm buzzed. The alarm did not ring noisily or shrilly like normal alarms did, because his alarm was not just some standard alarms. It was bodiless, since it was a warning sent to his nerves from the invisible electromagnetic field he set around his small house. The said house; however, was more like a home cum workshop cum office for him.<p>

It embarrassed him to admit that he learned the technique of that invisible field from his mute 'little' sister. He thought that it was perhaps a habit brewed from the insecurity she felt ever since she was freed from that tank in Bensalem. Nevertheless, regardless the origin of that technique, he found it remarkably useful. It allowed him to know how many guests; or unwelcomed intruders alike, that had come into his abode for business, and he could also find out the basic information of their identities.

Heen stretched his lazy body with a huge yawn. Information was still spilling into his mind through the electromagnetic waves from the invisible field; courtesy to his Nen. It was a group of Hunter; black-list Hunters, to be specific. All burly, disgustingly muscular men; except for a few scrawny-looking ones, and except for one female that…

"Goodness gracious me…" He whispered to himself as his eyes shot open in disbelief.

The door was flung open rather rashly and a man strolled in. The men behind him spilled into Heen's office like ants raiding a fully-stocked fridge. Heen did not even bother to study each one of them as his eyes darted among these men until he finally found who he was looking for.

_What the hell is Kurapika doing with this shady bunch of men?_ He thought as he straightened up and put on an all-business face.

Kurapika looked at him with what he thought was disinterest, before she turned away and looked around the room with bored expression, until her eyes were finally fixed on the calendar hanging on the wall. She frowned slightly, but that was all. There was an air of detachment around her, and certain callousness that he had never felt in her before. She felt so distant now, and she did not even acknowledge him in the eyes. It was as if he was a complete stranger to him.

Which he was far from being one.

"Yer Heen, the one who forges weaponries that best suit a man's combat ability?" The bearded man; who seemed to be the leader of the pack, demanded him as he stood imposingly in front of Heen's desk.

"Mmhmm. That's me, alright. What's your request?" He entertained the man easily.

With his electromagnetic Nen abilities, and his specialty in extracting memories from people's neutrons in their bodies—he had trained to do so without screwing their alignments as he did to Kurapika and Kuroro back then in Bensalem—he could design weapons that would perfectly matched the client's attributes. Suffice to say that he created weapons that could only be used to utmost potential by the requesting client and nobody else. Each individual had different data regarding their physical attributes and mentalities, and he could create weapons that best suited those data.

"Easy. Make each of us a weapon of our specialties." BeardedMan said gruffly.

"Hmm… It'll cost you high, y'know." Heen reminded him with a smirk.

"We can pay." BeardedMan flashed his Hunter licence at him with a malicious grin, and quickly hid it in his breast pocket.

"Very well. Give me ten days." When the BeardedMan raised his two great bushy eyebrows, Heen raised a hand and quickly added, "What do you expect? I work alone and there are ten weapons I have to make. I still need some rest and meals, dude. Besides, it's all about the quality as well. The less time I have with those weapons, the poor the quality. Now you decide." Heen finished with a triumphant smirk.

"Fine." BeardedMan groused as he crossed his arms irritably.

"Deal, then. Now, first of all, I need to acquire your data one by one." He stood up and walked to another door. "Who's going first?"

So Heen extracted their data one by one and stored them in his electric memory storage—one that Shalnark had helped built—though he was so bored while doing so. He could not wait until it was Kurapika's turn, and he knew that she was coming in last. A particular air of suspicion was hanging around her like second skin, after all.

"You're the last one, right? Finally!" He said cheerfully as he waved his hands dramatically when Kurapika stepped into the separate room. Inwardly, however, he was still mulling over on how to act around this strange Kurapika. She did not seem like her usual self.

Instead of sitting down on the chair provided in front of him, Kurapika stared at Heen with narrowed eyes. She was studying the olive-skinned man with unsure eyes.

"Something on my face?" Heen asked as he touched his face experimentally.

"…Have we ever met before?"

"Have we?" Heen cocked his head to one side. A good thing of being Bensalem's spy was that he was really good at acting now. "Well, I don't think so, since I wouldn't forget ever meeting a young lady as charming as you are."

"Hmph." Kurapika scoffed openly. "That is a very bad use of cliché."

"Oh, you've just stabbed my heart!" He put a hand on his chest in a mock hurt. "But it's okay, I won't go after you since someone has already claimed you."

Kurapika's eyes widened slightly, and her expression was as if shouting "What on Earth are you babbling about?" Heen raised a fine eyebrow at this.

"You're married, right?" He asked in pretended confirmation as he pointed as her hand that had the silver-onyx ring on her ring finger.

Her hand quickly covered the other 'guilty' hand and she glanced furtively at the said hand. There was a look of consternation on her face, and a tinge of panic in those oceanic blue eyes. Heen caught all these subtle hints, and he came into a conclusion—a very unpleasant conclusion.

"Sit down, will you? I can't begin unless you sit here. Don't worry, I don't bite." He said with gentler tone. "But if you want to talk the night away like this, I don't mind at all. I always welcome the company of lovely young lady like you." He grinned cheekily at her.

Kurapika scowled at him—a scowl he had seen before in Bensalem—but nevertheless she brusquely and unwillingly sat down on the chair.

"How are you going to do it?" She asked him, suspicion lacing her tone thickly like undiluted syrup.

"Well, just watch. Oh, first of all, please don't whack me out of your reflex, ok? I have already had my share of being punched, kicked, whacked—you name it—because of my first-time clients' marvellous reflexes." Heen said; cringing as he remembered the time when he was kicked in the stomach by a client during the early days of this new business. "Come, give me your hand," he said while reaching out to her.

Kurapika regarded his hand with very suspecting eyes, as if she was expecting that hand to suddenly grow an extra finger. Warily she placed her hand on top of his, and then she felt electric surge travelling in her body. It was extremely unpleasant and her other hand moved without her mind telling it to do so. She would have slapped him right on the cheek if the mahogany-haired man had not ducked just in time.

"Sheesh…I should've known…" Heen rolled his eyes, but he continued extracting information with his Nen.

With Kurapika, he took longer than the people before her since he was also extracting information about her current state—the obvious memory loss, that is. She did not remember him, she did not remember the significance of the ring she was wearing, and—if his observation on her staring at the calendar earlier was correct—she did not even remember today's date. Heck, she might even not understand why several years had skipped from her last memory.

The more information he extracted, however, the more he grew agitated. When he deemed it as enough, he withdrew from her.

"What was that?" She demanded hotly while rubbing her arm. Her skin and flesh still tingled from the after-effect of his Nen.

"Business secret." He grinned at her smoothly, though internally he was mildly cursing.

"Hmph." Kurapika tsk-ed, but did not pursue the matter further.

"By the way," Heen said as casually as possible as he turned to his computer desktop, "what are you guys going to do? Suddenly coming in and demanding specialty weapons from me for each one of you. Are you going to hunt something big?"

"That is none of your business." She replied gelidly.

"Now, now, don't be so cold to me, dear. That information may help me in designing better weapons for all of you, y'know." He winked at her.

Kurapika scrunched up her nose in disgust at his blatant flirtation with her, but she decided that his reasoning made perfect sense. She contemplated between telling him or not, until she finally made her decision.

"The Spiders." She said with low voice.

"Come again? Spiders? You are hunting spiders? Why do you need specially weapons to—" Of course he knew what she was talking about, but he decided to play ignorant for his own safety. He was a Spider himself, after all.

"The Genei Ryodan." Kurapika interrupted, and though she was wearing her black contact-lenses, the scarlet hue of her burning eyes could still penetrate the lenses faintly. "We are hunting Genei Ryodan."

There was so much venom in her voice that it took all he had to whistle casually as if in admiration while inwardly he was cursing.

_Oh, craaaap…_

* * *

><p><strong>[Heen can actually finish those weapons in less than a week, but he's buying time. He also said that they're staying in a local hotel. What should we do, Danchou?]<strong> Shalnark's voice perfectly reflected his 'I'm at loss on what to do, please enlighten me' mood.

Kuroro had been covering his mouth as Shalnark recounted Heen's story to him. Memory loss? Now that was one of the worst troubles that Kurapika could get herself into, and trust her to bring troubles with her whenever wherever whatever and however. With a sigh, he asked more questions to poor Shalnark.

"How strong are these Hunters?"

**[Um, according to Heen, they aren't much of a sport. He said Kurapika's still the strongest among all of them.]**

As expected of her, of course.

"How severe is the memory loss?"

**[He's not sure himself. I don't understand the details, but I think he said something along the line of the body remembering but the mind forgetting. He didn't dare question her about anything personal, so he doesn't know the extent.]**

"Which is wise of him." Kuroro commented. Had Heen tried to prod a very much confused and insecure-feeling Kurapika, she would not have hesitated to beat the living daylight out of him.

The problem now was that he did not know how to approach her in current situation. If Kurapika did not even remember the ring, then the amnesia might go as far as prior the Hassamunnin-fiasco. Further evidence was that she was willing to join a group of Hunters who were going after him and his gang. If any of his Spiders were to encounter her by accident, it might end up in inevitable bloodshed.

In any case, though, he had to separate her from those good-for-nothing Hunters first, exterminate those insignificant threats for the sake of prudency, and then deal with the rest of the situation. The problem was now how to separate her. Knowing her personality, she would be likely to stay in-door for the rest of the ten days and pondered about her situation. He could imagine that she would be largely at loss as well. He would be counting on that disorientation then, since she was highly likely to be less rationale and logical. He could take advantage of that.

"Machi and Shizuku should be enough to eliminate them, with Heen acting as their back-up. I'll deal with her personally. Tell them that I'll be seeing them at Heen's place." Kuroro decided.

**[Ok, Danchou.]** Shalnark chirped; obviously eager to take action—although it only involved contacting several Spiders.

"Oh, and Shalnark?"

**[Yeah?]**

"Make sure to keep the children out of this." Kuroro added as he leaned back in his chair with a vague sigh.

**[Huh? Oh. Oh! Yeah, sure. I know…] **

Though Shalnark did not explicitly express it, Kuroro knew that he regarded that last order as the hardest to carry out of all. Why? Because while Shalnark could steel his resolve to negate Meta's empathic ability (with great effort), Bia was another problem with her Nen that was similar to Heen's. Not only that, Meta could literally sniff secrets as if they were hanging in the air, and Bia could act as the 'extortionist'. What a dangerous duo.

If those two found out about the situation, thing would only go downhill and all Hell would break loose. Again.

**[Um, Danchou?]**

"Yes?"

**[Do you think…this memory loss thing is…well…permanent?]**

That was the question that Kuroro himself dreaded.

* * *

><p>"Ugh…Insufferable men with no manners whatsoever… So revolting…" She muttered under her breath as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Third day of staying in that local hotel as they waited for that Heen person to finish their requested weapons and those shameless Hunters started flirting with her as if they had never seen a female before. How disgusting.<p>

She reached out and turned the faucet of the basin, letting the water to wash away all that she had just vomited. Ever since the day she woke up in that inn in the remote town, she had been suffering from this occasional nauseas. Not to mention that her tempers could fluctuate so drastically, and there was this persistent presence inside her chest. She could not identify it, and it made her feel as if she understood herself even less day by day. Something was amiss, but she could not grasp it.

Kurapika looked up and stared at the reflection of her own face in the mirror. If the calendar at that Heen person's office was correct, she was supposed to be 25 this coming April, but she could not remember the eight years that had apparently passed. The more she tried to dig among the memories in her mind, the more the memories of those years seemed to slip from her fingers. It was infuriating.

She looked down at the hands that were clutching the porcelain basin. She stared at the ring that she was wearing. Although she did not know how and where she got that ring, but when she took it off she felt insecure and more ill in the inside.

"_You're married, right?"_ The olive-skinned man's voice echoed in the back of her mind.

Not only that the man's face seemed slightly familiar, as if she had seen that face before in the distant past, but he also pointed out something that she had been trying to deny. A ring on her ring finger. Yes, it was a symbol that one was married, but whom was she married to? The mere thought of it made her shudder in dreadful anticipation.

The more she thought of the situation, the more she felt like she was going to lose herself and sanity amidst this confusion. The only thing that managed to keep her focused and clear-headed was the fact that she was about to begin her hunt for the Genei Ryodan. She had been waiting for so long for this kind of hunt, but it brought up yet another question.

If these people were still going after the Genei Ryodan, then what had she been doing these past eight years? What about the eyes of her people that she had promised to collect?

It did not make sense if she had been doing nothing regarding those two goals for the past eight years. It was unacceptable for her. Where had her memories gone to? Did she hit her head? But there was no concussion on her head when she first woke up in that humble inn; and the landlady said that she had no external injuries. Her memories could not just vaporise on their own, right?

_Stolen…_The word suddenly flashed in her mind. At this realization, Kurapika felt strangely energized. _That's right! Someone must have stolen my memories. Most likely a Nen-user. But…What for? Besides, I should've put up resistance against whoever tried to steal my memories. But I have no injuries. Was I tricked? _

Kurapika exited the bathroom and began pacing in her bedroom. It was late night and she had not bothered turning on the main lamp and so the room was dimly lit; perfect for musings and deep thoughts.

There was another oddity that she found out about herself. She did try her Nen chain, and was mortified to find that she had lost the Nen blade in her heart. Whatever happened to it? Moreover, she discovered that her index finger now had a chain assigned to it while previously it was still empty. She was not sure what the role of the chain, but she felt that she might know it once she tried using it in a fight.

_Oh, this is so frustrating…_

Suddenly, the 'persistent presence' inside her chest stirred and she felt a newcomer in the room.

"You look appropriately frustrated."

That new unfamiliar voice froze the blood in her veins—as if it was giving creepy testimony of her gut feeling of a sudden new presence in the room—and she spun on her heels with her Nen chain instantly summoned; ready to strike at any given time.

Sitting on the chair leisurely in her bedroom was a raven-haired man in black suit, with white bandana wrapping his forehead. In the dimly-lit room, she could see the faint glints coming from the odd blue globular earrings that he wore. The man's skin was pale, and his eyes were like obsidian stones; they were pitch-black but there were gleams that she felt like she had seen before. She had not felt his presence at all even as she paced in the room like a madwoman. She had not even heard him coming into the room.

_So many things that I feel I've seen before, and yet I don't remember ever seeing them before. This is ridiculous,_ Kurapika spat inwardly.

"'Appropriately', you said?" She asked him warily.

"Appropriately." The stranger said pleasantly while nodding his head and with a knowing smile gracing his handsome feature.

"What do you know?" She demanded with harsh tone.

"That is not a nice way of asking people, Kurapika." He said, and he smirked amusedly as he noted how Kurapika stiffened at the mention of her name. "You are Kurapika Kuruta, the last of the Kuruta clan. Your home was in Rukuso Mountain. Your tribe was massacred by the Genei Ryodan and their renowned Scarlet Eyes were taken as trophies, and they _were_ circulated in the underworld."

Hearing all those, Kurapika visibly bristled and her eyes threatened to turn scarlet but she fought to rein in her emotions. She even withdrew her Nen chain. She looked at the man with level eyes. The man regarded her with calculating eyes,

"That much I am sure you remember. Currently you have lost parts of your memories, correct? Now, a question to you since I have answered yours: how much do you remember?"

"Who are you?" Kurapika practically snarled defensively.

"Now, now, Kurapika. One answer, one question. Answer my question first, and then I'll answer yours." He responded patiently. Kurapika noted how easily this man handled her temper, as if he was accustomed to dealing with her.

"The last thing I remember…" Kurapika began hesitantly, and suddenly she combed her golden hair in obvious irritation. "I should've just turned 17. I should be in Nostrad's bodyguard squad. I should be in Yorkshin City, and not in that remote small town. I…"

Her eyes darted around the room in blatant confusion. She realised that she was rambling like some insane woman, but she could not help it. She was too panicked with this sudden feeling of helplessness.

"So you lost your memories of around the time of the Yorkshin Auction. Most probably before the day of the auction since you don't seem to recognise _this_ face. Not yet, at least." The man said contemplatively as he covered his mouth with his hand and his gaze fell on the carpeted floor of the hotel room.

"And who are you? I've answered your question."

"Impatient as ever, aren't we?" He chuckled. "Well, I don't see the point of telling you who I am since you won't remember anyway."

"You sound as if you know so much about me." She accused him.

"Oh, I do." He smiled charmingly at her, and she suddenly felt like scratching that smirk off his face. His attitude was getting on her nerves! "What do you want to know about yourself? I may be able to answer some."

"You think I will trust your words? I don't even know who you are. And how the hell did you get into my room?"

"Pretty slow, aren't you? How unusual of you. I guess you are too distraught." He chuckled, which made her blush in anger.

"You still haven't answered my question properly. Who are you?" She barked at him.

"I told you, you won't remember."

"I don't care."

"Stubborn as a mule, expectedly." The man chuckled amusedly. "But I won't be answering that question here, seeing that your temper is especially volatile recently, with your body condition and your memory loss. I don't wish for collateral damage here."

"My body condition?" Kurapika echoed him with blinking eyes. What was wrong with her body? She had no external injuries whatsoever.

"You haven't realised? Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. Never mind that." The man waved a dismissive hand—a gesture that grandly ticked her off.

He got up and walked towards the balcony of the room. He stepped out and jumped so that he stood on the railing of the balcony quite comfortably. His figure seemed to blend with the black background of the night.

"If you are willing to follow me, then I'll answer your questions." He turned his back to her. "I'll be waiting."

And he leapt from the balcony.

Kurapika was torn. She felt compelled to follow that man, but she was hesitant to do so. True that the stranger seemed to know her quite well, but there was no guarantee that he meant well. For all she knew, he might be an enemy posing as a friendly acquaintance from the piece of her past that she had forgotten. Even worse, he could be the one who had stolen her memories!

Suddenly realising how foolish and useless it was to stay rooted there like some dumb duck, Kurapika leapt from the balcony as well with determination to catch up with the strange man. She could pick up his Nen quite easily, as if the man purposely left a track for her to follow.

However, that was not the reason why she could blindly pick the position of the man. Something stirred inside her, somewhere in her chest, giving her directions. It was a strange sensation, but she felt that she could at least trust this…instinct.

Several metres ahead of her, the man could feel Kurapika's presence and he let out a tiny relieved smile. Goodness knew that she could be so hard to handle sometimes.

* * *

><p>"FINOOOOOO!"<p>

The said girl jumped from her tall chair as the scream virtually shook the entire kitchen; if not the entire inn. No sooner after she managed to regain her composure, a certain young-looking man burst into the kitchen; panting and huffing and pale as if he had been chased by Death itself.

"S—Shal? What's wrong? It's not like you to yell so loudly like that." Fino said incredulously.

"T, the—*wheeze*—the kids…Where—*wheeze*—are the kids?" He asked with strained voice as he held on to the door frame to support his body.

"Meta and Bia? An hour ago they went to the forest to play with the horses." Fino blinked, not understanding why Shalnark was panicked.

"Did…did they carry…any bags…?" He asked gaspingly like an oxygen-lacking goldfish as he staggered towards the window that faced the forest.

"Hng…I guess? Why?"

"Oh, God…" Shalnark put his forehead on the window glass. "Danchou's going to kill me…"

"W, why? What happened?" Suddenly, it dawned to her. "Oh! Don't tell me they're running off again!" She rushed out of the kitchen to look around the outskirt of the forest, but there were no children in sight.

"That is what I fear. Oh no…"

"But where are they going to?"

"Heen's place." _Those kids must have investigated me when I was sleeping! Dammit!_ "I gotta go and catch up with them before it's too late."

"…Uh, Shal?" Fino's voice was small.

"Yeah?"

"I think it's too late."

"What?" Shalnark rushed out of the house.

"Look there." Fino pointed her finger to the sky.

Shalnark looked at what she was pointing at, and he wanted to faint on the spot there and then. Flying from the forest was a certain black unicorn with two figures sitting on its back.

"COME BACK HERE!" Shalnark shouted at them, but of course his voice did not reach them.

"It's useless…" Fino came to his side and patted his shoulders. "Let's just tell Kuroro and Kurapika?"

Shalnark turned to look at Fino with a guilty expression. He had not told her about Kurapika's memory loss since he did not want her to worry too much. Fino raised a quizzical eyebrow at this expression, and was about to question him when Shalnark suddenly pulled her and rested his forehead on her shoulder. He still would not tell her.

"Yeah…I think I'll tell Danchou…and wait for the worst." He muttered to her.

Fino could only pat his shoulders sympathetically. While she knew that Kuroro would not do anything to Shalnark regarding the children running off—though she knew that he would impose some sort of punishment on them; she saw him doing that once before—she knew that Shalnark's concern was Kurapika's temper.

Or at least that was what she assumed due to her ignorance of the truth of the situation.

* * *

><p>When she finally caught up with him, she was panting as if she had run twice the distance she had just travelled. For some reasons, she would get tired very easily these few days. Not to mention the frequent nauseas. When she reached him, he was already standing there composedly; no sweats whatsoever. It seemed that he had just sent a message to someone, but he pocketed his cell phone as soon as she had arrived and looked up. He raised an eyebrow when he saw her slightly heavy breathing, but commented nothing about it.<p>

"So." He started. "You want to know who I am, correct?"

She could only nod.

"I believe you are after the Genei Ryodan with those Hunters, yes?"

She nodded again, but frowned at the way he stretched the conversation.

"Do you honestly believe that the rag-tag group of Hunters you are with can kill any of the Spiders?" There was a cold glint of amusement in those obsidian eyes.

"Who…knows…" She answered patchily, still trying to calm her erratic breathing. "Are you…going to answer…my question…or not…?" She asked irritably.

"Of course. My name is Kuroro Lucifer."

Kurapika stiffened.

"Leader of the Genei Ryodan; whose blood you are after." Kuroro declared while spreading his arms widely in a welcoming manner; it looked almost embracing, even.

To Kurapika's eyes, this antic looked sickeningly like a twisted messianic gesture, and it fuelled the bristling rage inside her. Her rationale fleeing her mind in an instant, she summoned her Chain Jail in a millisecond and aimed the deadly hook towards Kuroro. Without even the slightest worry or surprise; as if it was planned, Kuroro raised an arm and let the chain wrapped itself around his arm. Kurapika had a triumphant grin that was bordering maniacal on her face, but soon enough she discovered something odd.

Kuroro had summoned his Skill Hunter book, and his Nen remained activated despite being touched by her Chain Jail.

"Surprised?" He said almost mockingly.

"H, how—?"

"The Nen Blade in your heart was released years ago. You no longer hunt the Ryodan, before your memory loss, that is."

Too shocked, Kurapika could only shake her head in disbelief as she tightened the chain's hold around Kuroro's arm. The chain did tighten, and Kuroro had to purposely strengthen his muscle to avoid having his bones crushed into smithereens. He maintained his observation at the Kuruta standing before him.

"LIES!" She suddenly yelled at him, and her Scarlet Eyes grew fiercer by each second.

Kuroro remained undaunted by this sudden outburst. He had anticipated it.

"YOU'RE LYING!" Kurapika clenched her hand, and the Chain Jail around Kuroro's arm tightened even more.

"Am I?" He questioned her smoothly. "Use your logic, Kurapika. The Nen Blade responds to your heart and resolve. You should understand the implication if it has really disappeared. What else can explain its disappearance, then?"

"I—I—" She stuttered, and her hand began to tremble. She looked at the ground beneath her with wide eyes. "No…I—Urk!"

Suddenly, Kurapika doubled up and her Chain Jail disappeared in an instant. She fell to her knees and started retching violently but nothing came out; she had already emptied everything from her system earlier on. These nauseous attacks were getting more and more frequent. Kuroro observed her from his spot, never moving an inch and he still kept his Skill Hunter book open.

"Forget about the hunt, Kurapika. You are in no condition." He finally said when te 'attack' had calmed down.

"Shut up! Why do you care, anyway?" She snapped at him.

Oh, it had been really long since the last time he heard those words from her mouth. It really reminded him of the early days of their journey eight years ago.

"Well, I am responsible for you." He shrugged, stating it as if it was the most obvious fact on Earth except for the fact that the Sun rose from the East and set on the West.

"What?" Her voice sounded squashed. "You? Responsible for me? That's ridi—" She was interrupted by a mild nauseous feeling, but it ended shortly. "W, wait a minute… First of all, what's wrong with my body?"

"…Now is not the time to know that." _Not yet, at least,_ he thought.

Without allowing Kurapika any time to utter a single syllable of protest or whatever else she was capable of uttering, Kuroro used his Teleportation skill and appeared behind her. With deft movement of his hand, he took something from his breast pocket and pricked her neck with it. There was only a wince from Kurapika, and the next moment she was as limp as a doll. She fell back to him, and he caught her easily in his arms.

Kuroro looked at the small needle that he had just used on Kurapika.

_Lucian better be sure that whatever he put on this needle has no other funny side-effects,_ he thought before he pocketed back the needle and carried Kurapika bridal style to the direction of the hotel again.

* * *

><p>"Crazy! They are crazy, I swear! Troubles after troubles, problems after problems. The lot of them are all magnets of problems!" He muttered vehemently under his breath. "But that isn't just the worst part; which is that I always get dragged into the whole mess!"<p>

"Sheesh, stop bitching like some pregnant woman, will you? You're hurting my ears. B'sides, you like it. Just admit it, you masochistic vampire." A female voice scoffed at him.

"Shut up, little girl. I'm not in any good mood right now." Lucian continued grousing as he packed his 'first aid kit' into travelling bag.

"I'm not a little girl!"

Lucian snorted mockingly.

"Yeah right." He said while rolling his grey eyes. "Now shut up, Yorn, or I'll shot you with my strongest tranquiliser that, I can assure you, will knock you out for a good few days."

"Try me." Yorn; the chieftain daughter of the Unicorn Tribe, stuck her tongue at him.

Lucian's temper barometer shattered into pieces.

"KYAAA! WHAT THE HELL?"

"You ask for it." He growled while stuffing the last of his emergency medical supplies into his bag. "You're lucky that I deliberately missed."

Yorn, on the other hand, was sprawled on the carpeted floor of Lucian's office quite ungracefully as she had just narrowly avoided the tranquiliser darts by a hair's breadth.

"Why are you so pissed off, anyway?"

"First," he turned to her abruptly and raised a very stiff finger, "Lucifer called and _demanded_ that I made a kind of harmless tranquiliser for Kurapika since something happened to her and he would NOT elaborate about it. And second, YOU," he jabbed a finger to her face; causing her to cringe, "barged in here, bombarded me with stories about how you saw what happened to Kurapika in such long-winded way I could hardly understand what you were babbling about and now you _demand_ that I accompany you to them so that you can tell them what had happened that night to Kurapika."

Yorn blinked.

"So?"

"_SO_," he was close to screeching, "my question is, why do everyone treat me like I'm their friggin' bellboy?"

"But you can just turn down those demands if you really don't want to get involved. It's not like they're your boss, right?" Yorn said confusedly.

"!" Lucian looked like he was chocked.

Yorn blinked several times again, and then suddenly she smirked _really_ widely. Then she started giggling in a very conspiring manner.

"Aha~~ Someone's painfully shy heee~~re~~" She giggled while covering her mouth with the tip of her fingers.

"W, WHAT?"

"Oh! Look at your face! I'm right on the money! Bull's eyes!" Yorn pointed a finger at his face, and now it was Lucian's turn to wince at this gesture. "You're happy to get involved, right? It's just that 'coz I'm here so you don't want to show how happy you are! Sheesh! Shy boy, aren't you?"

"Y, you little—" Lucian's pale face turned so red he looked more like a lobster. "Oh, _mă rog__! Spune ce vrei!_ (whatever! Say whatever you want)" He threw his hands heavenward in exasperation.

"Denial~~Deniaa~~aal~~" Yorn sang as she twirled her index fingers as if she was a conductor.

"Shut up and get you sorry behind off my couch. We're going now." Lucian grumbled as he snatched his travelling bag from his desk and marched to the door.

Yorn quickly skipped after him and was humming along the way as they descended the stone staircase and out of the mansion. Just a few hours ago; as Lucian had pointed out, Yorn had barged into his domicile and showered him with torrents of jumbles of words that supposedly described the incident that had caused Kurapika's memory loss.

"So…You were saying that you and Kurapika had agreed to meet in a forest near that town because of your…appearance."

"Uh-huh."

"Then you saw someone—"

"Looks like a wrinkly ancient old woman in gypsy outfit. She looks like the evil witches in fairy tale." Yorn added.

"And this…old woman approached her and talked with her, and suddenly there's a bird-like creature that swooped down and did something to Kurapika, and then Kurapika collapsed, and when the bird flew off that old woman ran off as well?"

"Yep. I tried following that old witch since she ran off into the forest and I'm good at tracking in forest, but I lost signs of her halfway through the forest. When I came back to get Kurapika, she's already disappeared."

"Mm-hmm…" Lucian nodded. "I think we can get the rest of the story from Lucifer. After that we'll try to put the pieces together."

_Lucifer should be able to do it in a snap of finger…_Lucian fought the urge to roll his eyes at this thought.

They had reached the peak of the hill where the mansion was sitting, and Lucian tugged out a necklace from underneath his pristine white shirt. The pendulum of the necklace spilled out; it was a smooth spherical purplish black gem with metal decoration around it. It glowed solemnly in Lucian's fingers. Lucian whispered something in a language that Yorn did not recognise but she suspected that it was not Romanian. The pendulum's glow brightened, before it suddenly dimmed rapidly as if the fire kindling inside it had been extinguished.

In exchange for the extinguished 'fire', however, a massive bird with colour palette identical to that of the gem suddenly sprung forth from the gem with a great cry. It did a somersault in the air ("show-off," Yorn muttered) before it landed on the ground in front of Lucian with surprising grace and care.

"Ready?" Lucian turned to Yorn; who was staring at the suspicious-looking (in her opinion) bird.

"We're riding _that_?"

"What else? Did you see an airport or blimps around here?" Lucian questioned her flatly.

"Er…Well…"

"C'mon then, or I'll leave you behind." The vampire suddenly narrowed his eyes as a thought struck him. "Or are you afraid of heights or flying?"

"Ukh…" Well, that was not really true since she really did not mind heights or flying, but she preferred to use that method as the _really last resort_. "Not really."

"Really? Come to think of it, if my memory serves me right—which it does—the first we meet you were sky-diving while screaming very _girlishly_."

"Hey! That wasn't my fault! It was Paralda's—"

"Whoever is that? Don't blame others for your actions, will you?" Lucian said as he walked towards the great purplish black bird.

"Paralda is the King of Sylph!" Yorn stomped after him. "He controls the wind and at that time he dropped me—"

"Uh-huh."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"You think so?"

"It's so damn obvious, you—"

And so they kept bickering along the way, and there were hardly any silent moments or even pauses. Even as the wind roared around them due to the incredibly fast speed that Lucian's familiar had picked, they still screamed at each other as their means of conversing.

The poor familiar could only put up with this headache-inspiring annoyance as best as it could.

* * *

><p>Kuroro leaned back in his chair as he stared at the ceiling of the hotel bedroom. Kurapika was still unconscious; laying prone on the bed, and Kuroro was processing the information that he had managed to gather.<p>

Heen had told him that the neurons in her brains registered no memories post Yorkshin Auction onwards; which meant his deduction was right. However, oddly enough, Heen also said that Kurapika's body still remembered habits that she had developed during the last eight years; which brought him to a conclusion that the damage was only done to the memory-storing part of her brain and nothing on her body. Most probably, Kuroro deduced, that her memory had been stolen instead of an after-effect of some external damages.

A vibration coming from his cell phone broke his train of thoughts (again). He looked at the Caller ID and was not surprised to see a certain cockroach-like person calling him.

**[Lucifer, open the window, please!] **Lucian practically yelled at him, and Kuroro could hear the roaring of the wind in the background of the call.

He did not have to ask the reason for the request, since he more or less had it figured in his head. Knowing the full details of Lucian's occasional stupidity would be a welcomed entertainment, though. Without bothering to reply, Kuroro walked to the window of the hotel room and opened it widely. He promptly moved aside as he anticipated something zooming right into the room from the said window.

Which was what exactly happened about a second later.

A flurry of black and brown invaded the hotel room, and it stumbled to the carpeted floor quite noiselessly since the carpet cushioned the landing. Nonetheless, a mixture of female and male voices shouting "Ouch!" and "Ow!" was inevitable. When whatever it was that had just barged in to the room had settled, Kuroro calmly closed the window and drew the curtain. He turned around and regarded the heap on the floor with a raised quizzical eyebrow.

"_Sfinte sisoe_ (holy shit)! That hurts!" He cursed.

"Your damn fault! Why did we have to crash into this room like that? I could've broken my horn if we had landed wrongly. If that happened, I'm gonna skin you alive!" She complained.

"You think my familiar can just magically stop after flying in breakneck speed like that? You were the one who requested; I quote: 'at top speed'!" He scolded her.

"You could've decelerated way before, you dolt!" She shoved him aside rudely by his shoulder.

"Why do you think I couldn't order my familiar to decelerate earlier, huh?" He poked her between her eyes with his sinewy finger.

"Because you were distracted by her, I presume?" Kuroro decided to join their ridiculous 'chat'—and effectively put an end to it.

Both Lucian and Yorn turned their heads so abruptly to his direction that they almost cracked their necks. Yorn had an expression of indignation on her face, while Lucian had a look of…well…it was hard to describe but he looked kind of torn in the inside; as if he was happy yet pissed off at his comment.

"Yes! She wouldn't stop chit-chattering, as if tomorrow's Dooms Day." Lucian said as he got up and dusted himself.

"Feh! Look who's talking!"

"Lucian, two questions: why are you here, and who is this lady?" Kuroro regarded Yorn with a calculating look; which earned him a frown from the Unicorn girl. "And I see that she is from the Unicorn tribe."

"Name's Yorn. She's Kurapika's…" Lucian turned to Yorn. "I don't think 'friend' is the correct term."

"Colleague?" She offered, though she did not seem sure about it either.

"Have I seen you before, Yorn?" Kuroro turned to fully face her.

"You should have, during the time when Silva Zaoldyck tried to loop off your head in Yorkshin City. This klutz had stumbled into that Ground Zero, screaming _threats_ at Silva Zaoldyck if he dared hurt _ta_ _dragă_ (your darling)" Lucian shrugged.

"Ah, now I remember." Kuroro nodded, and turned to Lucian again. "And my first question?"

"Oh. Um. Well…" The raven-haired vampire scratched the back of his head. "It's about Kurapika. Yorn said she saw what happened to Kurapika a few days ago."

"Oh? Did she?" Kuroro regarded Yorn with a renewed interest then; which made Yorn cringed uncomfortably. Something about his eyes discomforted her, and it felt as if he was seeing right through her with those obsidian-eyes of his. "Why don't you sit down so that you're more comfortable when you tell me your story?"

Yorn edged herself warily to the chair that Kuroro had pointed; as if the chair itself could eat her alive when she was off-guard. Lucian rolled his eyes when he saw her antic, but understood her reaction at Kuroro's (annoying) debonair attitude. For someone growing up in the wild and in rural tribe, people like Kuroro absolutely put her on edge.

She then began telling (or re-telling, since she had already bombarded Lucian with that story twice in his mansion) the incident she had witnessed. She tried to tell him as detailed as possible, since earlier (during their breakneck ride) Lucian had warned him that Kuroro Lucifer was meticulous with details. Unless she wanted to be interrogated ceaselessly and relentlessly for details, it would be better for her to simply tell him _everything_.

When she was done, Kuroro covered his mouth with his hand and closed his eyes. In this instance, Yorn pulled at Lucian's sleeve and gestured at him to bend down so she could whisper to him.

"He's freaking me out." She told him with low voice.

"Is he? That's just how he is."

"I don't understand why Kurapika loves him. Their personalities don't match! Nope-nope!" She whispered again to him furiously.

"Beats me. I don't think they have ever told each other 'I like you', let alone 'I love you'."

"Seriously?" Yorn stared at him wide-eye.

"Not sure. If you want, ask him yourself."

"No! He's too creepy! You ask him!"

"What's so creepy about him, honestly? He looks normal for a normal human. Unlike _you_." Lucian flicked her horn with one pale finger.

"How rude! This is our pride, you doodoohead!"

"Doodoohead? Look who's talking, you nincompoop!"

"Yorn." A cool voice drowned their furious whispered bickering.

"Y, y, yes?" Yorn suddenly sat up straight. Something about this man really unnerved her; was her huntress instinct to blame?

"Are you sure the bird is just a normal bird?" Kuroro asked, his eyes staring straight to her bright green eyes.

"Uh…" Yorn closed her eyes and tried to recall the scene in her mind. "Come to think of it…" She drawled unsurely. "…the bird looked kinda…odd…"

"How odd?"

"Well…Lemme remember…" She paused for a long time, before finally she clapped her hands. "I know! It's the leg! The legs are human arms instead of normal bird legs!"

"Ouch!" Lucian made a disgusted expression. "Now _that_ is what I call creepy."

"Does that bird feel like normal bird? Or do you think it's made of pure Nen?" Kuroro asked her again.

"Hng…" Yorn crossed her arms and cocked her head sideways. "It's not made out of Nen. Nope." She shook her head.

"What kind of a bird is that? I've never heard of a creepy bird species like that in _my_ entire life!" Lucian exclaimed in disbelief.

"Seeing is believing. Go and look for it. I'm sure it has human arms for its legs!"

"Then," Kuroro intercepted them, and the two of them fell quiet and observed him, "that bird is a chimera. Most probably assembled from different parts using Nen.

"You mean…That old witch cut off someone's arms and replace the bird's legs with those arms?"

"Possible." Kuroro shrugged, as if that gross notion did not bother him in the slightest.

"The wonder of human's minds and their creativity…" Lucian shook his head and shuddered, while Yorn gave a very loud "Eeew!" sound. "So what do we do now, Lucifer? Kurapika's still out cold, right?"

"_You_ should know how long she'll be out." Kuroro narrowed his eyes at the vampire.

Lucian gulped. Kuroro sighed but said nothing. He took out his cell phone and dialled a number.

"Shalnark." He said flatly.

**[H—hi, Danchou!]**

Kuroro raised a quizzical eyebrow as he noted the painfully obvious nervous pitch in his voice. Deciding to ignore it for the time being, Kuroro proceeded with his orders.

"Shalnark. Try to find out about information brokers; individual and groups, especially those who deal with specific and particular information. If possible, try to find those that steal information and memories."

**[H, huh? So Kurapika's memories are stolen?]**

"Most probably so."

**[But if that's the case, then isn't it impossible for her to regain those memories since they're basically taken out of her brains?]**

_Shalnark, do you really need to tell me the unpleasant probabilities that I have already known since the beginning?_ Kuroro fought the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Maybe." Kuroro simply replied coolly, and his face was a mask of indifference. "And Shalnark?"

**[Y, yes?]**

"Do you mind telling what has happened there?" Kuroro said 'sweetly', but to Shalnark it sounded like the threatening voice of a court judge.

**[Uh…Well…You see…I, um…]**

"Shalnark." Kuroro steeled his tone slightly, and rather impatiently.

**[They ran away, Danchou…with Bara…] **Shalnark finally spoke up in a there-I-tell-you-so-you-can-butcher-me-or-punish-me-in-any-manners-that-you-want-since-I-have-epicly-failed-your-order tone, and pretty much resigned manner.

Kuroro sighed, and Shalnark gave a funny strangled sound.

"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Kuroro muttered, and on the other side of the line Shalnark could only grimace a bit sheepishly. "Fine then. I'll deal with it. Get me the information as soon as possible."

**[Sure no problem, Danchou!]** Shalnark said very enthusiastically, and Kuroro figured that he really was going to do it with gusto like never before; probably as an apology for his 'failure' of keeping the children out of trouble.

"Those runts ran off again?" Lucian inquired him curiously.

"As you have heard." Kuroro shrugged while pocketing his cell phone.

He was not surprised to hear that it was Bara who had complied with the children's ridiculous wish—who else, anyway? Una was too timid to do such outrageous thing. He could imagine the poor young unicorn pleading her father not to go along with the children's request and was largely ignored.

Not long after he had just put his cell phone in the pocket of his pants, an apparition made its grand appearance—namely a 'tiny' firework—inside the hotel room; scaring the living hell out of Yorn and sending Lucian sputtering some mild Romanian curses.

_**Bossman, I've got news for you.**_ Deifri the Ifrit said with proud tone—proud because he managed to fluster the wits out of two people.

"Which is?" Kuroro asked composedly, while inside he was cringing, _Now what?_

_**That stupid winged, horned black horse and your reckless brats got themselves in deep shit. To be specific, they're having a wild-goose chase around a particular forest not far from here,**_Deifri said with a snicker while pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

Kuroro raised an eyebrow.

"Who's chasing them?"

_**Dunno. Bara did mention that he's so going to kick the crap out of any old witches he's going to encounter from now on. So I guess it's a witch.**_ Deifri shrugged noncommittally.

Lucian and Yorn exchanged looks that practically screamed 'A clue! Hallelujah!' and they beamed at each other as if the world was a field of pretty flowers.

"And it turns out that the children's getaway is not such a bad thing after all." Kuroro grinned in satisfaction. "Can you teleport us there?"

_**Sure no problem, bossman. They coming along?**_

"Yes." Kuroro said without even asking for their opinions. ("Oi!" coming in unison from the two of them)

_**How about your sleeping beauty there?**_

"Take her along as well." Kuroro said without hesitation as he walked towards the bed and scooped her in his arms. Kurapika gave a soft groan, but before she could completely wake up Deifri had impatiently started his magic.

_**Okie dokie. On my mark!**_ Deifri raised his hands in exaggeration.

However, there were never any marks from him, since he immediately spirited them away from that place to somewhere else some good miles away from that hotel.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong>__ Cliffy, cliffy… Hehehe… This is just part one. Part two is coming real soon… Only if you review first XD *evil grin* At first this was intended to be a one-shot, but I guess now it has become a three-shot…if there's such thing. So now I have to put it on different title._

_I feel like an idiot, for having written the epilogue and yet still posted more chapters that could've been put before the epilogue. Oh well… The damage's done and all…_

_Just enjoy it for now. If you don't enjoy it…well…by all means complain to me in your reviews =P_


	2. Crisis

_**Disclaimer: **__Again, the most tragic thing about fanfic: HunterxHunter is essentially not mine._

_**Story so far:**__ An amnesiac Kurapika Kurapika had finally encountered Kuroro Lucifer and it obviously did not end up well. However, at the very least they found out where to start with 'get Kurapika's memories back' operation._

* * *

><p><strong>Part 2<strong>

_**CRISIS**_

* * *

><p>"B, b, ba, ba—Bara—" He tried to speak but his teeth kept clattering noisily. It was not due to some colds or anything; it was because the ride was really <em>really <em>rough—that was to put it mildly. 'Wild' was perhaps more suitable. "S, s, s, she—she's—s, st, still—"

_**Quit talking, boy, or you'll bite your tongue to death,**_ Bara told him unthinkingly, and it really got the boy to zip his mouth shut. _**Even without you telling me, I still know that the creepy blasted old hag is still after our guts. Hang on, kids. **_

Bara had wisely chosen to run in the forest, since on air there was a flying creature to be avoided, and it belonged to that creepy old witch. Said witch was trekking—or rather, skipping after them like demon possessed—the forest but the presence of the trees hindered her movements slightly. Bara was counting on the trees to help him shake off this spooky pursuer, but apparently the old witch's dictionary knew no words like 'give up'.

Meta and Bia ducked low while sitting on Bara's back; Meta practically meshing his body onto Bara's while hugging his neck as if it was his only lifeline, and Bia clutching Bara's mane as firmly as her hands could. Occasionally she would send electromagnetic waves to the old woman to distract her, but it made only small difference. Sure, she would stagger from the shock, but she would continue pursuing them with gusto like before. Not to mention that her cackling, high-pitched laughter scared the wits out of her. Hatsubaba sometimes laughed like that, but this old woman's laugh was completely life-threateningly nerve-wracking!

"Wait for me, sweeties~~ Granny wants to talk with you~~" The old woman still ran after them relentlessly.

_You're evil and creepy! Who'd want to wait for you?_ Meta screamed in his head; he could feel her evil aura seeping out of her until it was almost tangible for him.

* * *

><p>The crickets were having the night of their lives; singing their orchestra, when suddenly four persons appeared out of thin air and fell to the soft ground. Two landed on the ground rather ungracefully, while one remained standing on his feet with the other one still safe in his arms. The two; who were unfortunate to kiss the ground first thing first after their first experience of teleportation ever, grumbled under their breath as they rubbed their sore body parts and got up to their feet.<p>

Kuroro looked around and surveyed the dark forest. There was no sign of humans at all; the forest was still largely pristine and virgin.

"Well? I don't see or hear any of them."

_**Relax, bossman. The unicorn is running as if his ass is on fire. It's pointless to teleport to where they are since they keep moving anyway. So I take the liberty of moving you to where they're heading right now.**_ Deifri said with chin up and nostrils flaring.

"Is that so?" Kuroro muttered as he kept scanning the darkness around him.

Suddenly, he felt movement in his arms and when he looked down he saw Kurapika waking up. Kuroro dismissed Deifri and the Ifrit happily obliged with the order—it would bring Hell to have Kurapika see an _Ifrit_ hovering above her. Kuroro remained still until she opened her eyes, and she blinked several times dazedly before her eyes finally caught his.

"How's your sleep, sleeping beauty?"

"W—what?" She exclaimed furiously but her face flushed nonetheless.

"Hey! She finally wakes up!" Yorn ran towards the pair but was stopped by Lucian as he held on to the tail of her chestnut brown hair. "OW! That hurts, you dimwit!"

"You idiot, you're going to scare the day out of her if you suddenly approach her like that. She lost her memories, remember?" Lucian scolded her as he pulled her back.

"Ouch! Fine, fine, I understand! But you don't have to manhandle me, you brute!" Yorn yelled at him as she extricated her poor hair from the vampire's grip.

"W—who? What—where?" She stuttered as she tried to wriggle herself out of Kuroro's arms rather frantically.

"Relax, Kurapika. One by one." Kuroro put her down as Kurapika looked around—after leaping away from Kuroro with unnecessary gusto—with wild eyes and apparent panic. "First of all, these people aren't enemies."

"You could've told her that we're her friends, Lucifer." Lucian protested flatly; which was beautifully ignored by Kuroro.

"F, friends?"

"Although I know that she won't remember me, it still hurts." Lucian said to Yorn dramatically as he put a hand on his chest.

"You inveterate drama queen." Yorn scoffed at him.

"Tomboy."

"Sissy."

While it was entertaining to see the two of them hurling insults and mean words to each other, Kurapika decided that it was not a productive activity and so she turned to Kuroro and gave him a hard look.

"What? I'm not kidnapping you." Kuroro raised his hands in surrendering gesture.

"Like I'll believe you." Kurapika snapped.

"That's not the way to talk to the person who helped you gather all the Scarlet Eyes, Kurapika." Kuroro said in a rather taunting manner.

Kurapika's eyes flashed scarlet in an instant, but it was enough time for Kuroro to admire those eyes. It had been a long time since he last saw those mesmerising pair of eyes and he would not pass the opportunity to see them again; though the situation was too unpleasant to his liking.

"That is a very insulting lie, Kuroro Lucifer." She hissed belligerently at him.

"I never lie to you, Kurapika." Kuroro flashed him a crooked smile.

"What rubbish! You are the leader of the Genei Ryodan, a criminal! Who'd believe that you don't lie—"

"True that I'm a criminal. But it's only to you that I've never lied." Kuroro said airily.

Kurapika was speechless. It was not his play of words that struck her silent, but it was more of his eyes; they were painfully honest to her, wary and suspecting as she might be towards him. It was something that she could not deny.

"He's right, Kurapika. He's never lied to you, not a single time! That's how devoted he is to you!" Lucian told her from a distant, amidst his sily I-know-more-mean-vocabularies-than-you-do competition with Yorn.

"B—but it doesn't make sense…I—I killed one of your Spiders! So why—" Kurapika looked around the dark, empty forest with panic-filled eyes.

"Actually, you killed two." Kuroro said easily. "Paku died by your Judgement Chain."

Kurapika froze.

"So…she really…"

"Oi, oi. Should you really be telling her all those?" Lucian walked towards Kuroro with a look of exasperation in his voice, when suddenly he felt a violent tug at his silky hair. "Yorn! The hell was that for—"

"LOOK THERE! IT'S THAT WITCH! IT'S THAT DAMN WITCH!" Yorn yelled as she pointed at certain direction of the forest.

It earned her the attention of the other people present there. Kuroro looked up and indeed he saw a vague silhouette of a hunching old woman at distance and a kind of bird perching on her shoulder, but that was all that he could see. Lucian, on the other hand, could see as if it was daylight for humans.

"Oh, wow. She's just like you described, Yorn. Pretty spooky appearance. And the bird…Jeez, it's really a bird with human arms for its legs."

"W—what?" Kurapika chocked—on her saliva perhaps—when she heard this.

"After her!" Yorn shrieked in what might sound like a battle cry—alerting the old woman and her bird and so they ran away—and dashed towards the old woman head-on. The thing was she dragged Lucian along…by his hair.

"_De ce mă glisarea de-a lungul, tu femeie nebună?_ (why are you dragging me along, you crazy woman)" Lucian yelled in pain, but nevertheless ran after the fleeing old woman with creepy bird.

Kuroro and Kurapika were left on their own in that dark forest; Kurapika looking absolutely at loss and Kuroro looking at the spot where those three had disappeared into the darkness of the forest with slight amusement in his face.

"What…is this all about? What's happening?" She finally asked him with small voice.

"According to Yorn, that old woman was the one who stole your memories using that bird."

"B—but he said a bird with human arms as its…legs?"

"Apparently so. My guess is it was created using Nen." Kuroro shrugged, as that fact was of no significant to him. Instead, he glanced at the young woman standing slightly in front of him.

"So they're going after the old woman…to get my memories back?"

"Need you state the obvious?" He chuckled while taking a few strands of her golden hair and twirled them in his fingers. "I say that we just need for them to come back."

Suddenly, there was a shrill voice coming from another direction of the forest.

"Oh. And wait until the children and Bara are here."

"Children?" Kurapika stared at him with her eyes at their maximum sizes. Her brain suddenly turned frizzed—Kuroro Lucifer with children? What the—

"Ah, here they come."

Soon enough, there was a thunderous sound of hoofs beating against the ground. Kurapika's heart almost stopped when she saw a horned black horse galloping towards her at breakneck speed. Out of reflex, she summoned her Nen chain but Kuroro grabbed her wrist to prevent her from doing anything rash—as he knew that she sometimes did when panicked and disoriented.

Seeing the two of them, Bara's ruby eyes brightened.

_**Good timing, Kuroro-boy! Please take care of that creepy old hag who's after our blood behind us!**_ As he said so, Bara made a strong leapt and practically jumped over the standing couple.

Kurapika stared at the black horse in disbelief; she had never seen a horse doing that kind of feat! When the black horse landed on the ground, it did not stop and simply kept running straight ahead. Kurapika saw two small passengers on the horse's back. One was a girl with odd white hair, and the other…

"Mom! Dad!" The boy squealed, but he soon disappeared into the darkness of the forest as the horse mercilessly continued galloping.

_Wh—what—_

"D, did he just say—" Kurapika pointed at the spot where the horse and its passengers had disappeared into. She still could not believe her hearing.

Kuroro was not listening to her. He was staring to the spot where Bara had just emerged from. He felt a presence coming in fast, and he had a bad feeling about it. Suddenly, the air from that spot vibrated and out of instinct Kuroro shoved Kurapika—who was still standing dazedly—from in front of him slightly to his left, to his far right side.

Kurapika had hardly let out a gasp or surprise when she heard the swishing sound of the air being cleaved by a kind of vacuum blade. She did not stumble unceremoniously to the ground and quickly regained her balance by bracing her legs far apart. She spun around and had opened her mouth with intention of yelling at Kuroro Lucifer for shoving her roughly aside, but no words came out of her mouth when she saw him and his condition.

He had a look of mute shock on his face, and his right arm was still in the position when he had shoved her aside. She had never imagined to see that kind of expression on the Spider Head's face—she never knew he was capable of that kind look of pure, unbridled shock—but her eyes caught sight of something disturbingly red dripping from his left side. Before she could see his left side, she was distracted by yet another sound.

The dull sound of something solid hitting the soft, grassy ground.

She looked at the direction where that muffled sound had come from, and was jaw-slacked when she saw a piece of arm lying there.

"Who would've thought…" Kuroro hissed as he quickly used his Nen to blanket the open, grotesque wound on what remained of his left shoulder. The bleeding instantly stopped, but nonetheless he had lost quite a lot amount of blood.

He had only felt a breeze passing him, and the next thing he knew a part of his left shoulder had been chopped off and his left arm had been flying away from his body. Now he knew how it felt to have a limb cut off.

"Y—your arm—" Kurapika started dumbly. Suddenly a new wave of nausea assaulted her and she doubled up. Fortunately there was nothing left inside her stomach to be vomited out. She did make some gross noises but that was all.

"In front, Kurapika. Focus." Kuroro took out his pins from God-knows-where-he-hides-them, and readied himself for a battle despite his 'amputation'.

Kurapika glanced fleetingly at the arm lying prone on the grassy ground, before she summoned her Nen chain and prepared herself for whatever was coming their way.

"Ooh~~? Look who do we have here~"

Kuroro narrowed his eyes when he heard that voice. It sounded like the voice of an old woman.

When the old woman emerged from the darkness of the forest ahead of them; still immaculate and not breathing hard at all, she was giggling as if she was an escapee from an asylum for the mentally ill…or worse. Like Yorn's description, she wore a kind of gypsy attire, with a cane on her wrinkled arm.

"Hmm~~ My pretty bird is still after those cutie pie kids. They are with a unicorn, you know~? A _black_ unicorn, no less~ Interesting, no? I wonder what kind of memories and information they have in those little pretty heads of theirs. Must be delicious, rii~~ght?" The old woman licked her shrivelled lips hungrily.

Kurapika cringed.

"Ugh…She reminds me of Hisoka…" She muttered in disgust.

"An old woman version of him. I can't disagree." Kuroro said with a thin smile.

However, he was bothered with a question: why was the old woman here when Lucian and Yorn had been chasing after her? Besides, from Bara's tone it seemed that she had been after them for quite a while. Was one of them an illusion? If that was so, then this one had to be the real one since the attack just now was too real to be an illusion. Or were they twins? That was possible as well.

"How about you two~? You make lovely couple, my darlings~ What do you have in those handsome and pretty heads of yours? Hihihihi~~"

As she giggled so, the old woman leapt from where she was standing high to the sky and swung her cane. This time, Kuroro could see what was happening. The moment she swung the stick, the air reverberated and he could feel the pressure on the air; the strength and the speed that the old woman used when swinging the cane created a kind of vacuum blades. What a scary old woman.

Kuroro and Kurapika ducked the vacuum blade—he was glad that she was still combat-ready even when she was distraught and disoriented as she was right at the moment. Perhaps he had to give credits to her Hunter instinct?

He threw his pins to her direction, but she swatted those pins aside easily with her cane. Kuroro vaguely wondered what kind of material the cane was made of. It had to be a kind of metal of some sort. Kuroro took out his Skill Hunter book and the pages quickly flipped. The moment it opened to the desired page, Kuroro disappeared; only to reappear right above the old woman. He delivered an especially strong kick at the old woman's back, never minding the rather loud cracking sound coming from her back—fractured bones, at the very least—because, despite his indifferent look, he was quite irritated by him missing an arm. The phantom limbs effect was starting to get to him—though he could drown out that sensation, it was still annoying. Besides, this was the first time he ever lost a limb in a fight and so he wanted to at least get even with the 'offender'.

Not that he regretted the cause of his 'amputation', though. Had he not shoved a distracted Kurapika aside, she would have been split into two and that would be impossible to fix. His arms could still be fixed, so he guessed that it was worth the effort.

When the old 'witch' landed on the ground with a loud thud, she started scrambling to her feet and was screeching something in indignation at Kuroro. She got up rather sluggishly, as if the damage on her back done by Kuroro was quite extensive. Kuroro was still airborne when the old woman raised her cane in attempt to deliver another one of her vacuum blades. She thought that he would not be able to dodge when mid-air, but she obviously forgot his Teleportation skill. She was just about to swing down her cane when suddenly it felt as if her cane was stuck somewhere solid. She tugged at her cane violently for several times, before she finally realised that it was not only her cane. Her whole body was paralyzed.

"Got you." Kurapika said triumphantly as she walked close to the old lady. Soon enough, her Nen chain that she had concealed with In revealed itself wrapping the old woman's body. It was the same technique she had used with Uvogin.

"You little wench!" The old lady screamed at her; her face the very representation of 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'.

Suddenly there was a shrill cry coming from above. Kurapika only had the time to look up when she felt something feathery colliding with her head and started clawing at her. It was the old woman's bird. Distracted, her Nen chain slacked and the old woman wasted no time to escape from it. She had just turned to Kurapika and swung down her cane a few degrees; not enough to manifest any vacuum blades yet, when her wrist was ensnared with a deathly grip.

Before she even had the time to look back (in fury) at the one who locked her wrist, she felt a foot slamming to her back and sent her crashing to the ground beneath her. With the grip maintained around her wrist, suffice to say that there was a sickening cracking sound coming from her shoulder joint. Whether she had merely sprained it or dislocated it; or if the bones had been broken inside, the perpetrator clearly did not give a damn about it.

"Heh. For an old woman you are surely very lively." Kuroro said while maintaining his punishing foot on the old woman's back.

The old woman squirmed violently, trying to get rid of that foot on her back, but it was to no avail. She only managed to look like a worm that had been showered with salt. That said, she resorted to throwing insults at the man but of course it had no effect on him at all. There was a death-inspired squeak coming from the direction where Kurapika and the bird had been wrestling. Kurapika had finally won the contest and had wrapped the infernal bird neatly (like a package containing TNT) with her Nen chain. She scowled heavily as there were some scratches on her face and her hair was an absolute mess. The bird was still alive, though.

_Still the same Kurapika. She doesn't even have the heart to kill a bird. Or perhaps evidently that is just how she is since the beginning,_ Kuroro fleetingly thought, before he focused back to the old woman under his foot. She was still struggling desperately. Kuroro pulled at her wrist and it elicited a cry of pain from the old woman, along with a string of colourful combinations of curses that followed soon after.

"An eye for an eye," Kuroro smirked down at her dangerously, "a limb for a limb."

Without further ado, Kuroro pulled hard at the said wrist. _REALLY_ hard. The pull was strong enough to rip the entire arm off the old woman's shoulder. He figured that it would be way more painful to have one's arm literally ripped off like that instead of cut off clean like his. Sometimes; when he felt like it, he would return the damage he received manifolds towards the attacker. This time, he really felt particularly evil.

The old woman let out a scream agony as if Judgment Day had finally come. She trashed wildly and continued screaming, scaring the residents of the forest. Some birds flew from their comfy nests up among the branches of trees.

"Kuroro!" Kurapika exclaimed in protest that was mixed with shock and disbelief.

"I'm just returning the favour. Now, down to business…" He bent down to the old woman; who had finally ceased her ear-splitting screams. "Did you steal her memories?"

Instead of answering, the old woman spat at him and threw more insults to his face. Kuroro's eyes turned glacial and he narrowed his eyes. He was not feeling magnanimous or patient at the moment. Not at all.

In a draw of breath, he took out a pin and threw it down to the old woman's head. It practically impaled the old woman's head to the ground. Silence then came back to the forest. The wind blew coldly, carrying the repugnant stench of blood with it and spreading it everywhere else.

"You…didn't have to do that." Kurapika stated shakily. Suddenly, a new wave of nausea came back and she started retching violently. Despite so, she still maintained her Nen chain around the bird.

"I feel otherwise." Kuroro said deadpanned as he walked towards Kurapika. He felt unbalanced with a whole arm missing.

Suddenly, his cell phone rang and he answered it without even bothering to look at the Caller ID. It would be either from Shalnark or Lucian, anyway.

**[Yo, **_**frater**_** (brother). We've finished with business here.] **Lucian said in a sing-song manner.

"And?"

**[The old hag put up one helluva resistance. She freaked the undead out of me, I'm telling you. It feels like I'm facing that insane clown again, old woman version!]**

"Ditto."

**[Oh? You mean you've fought another one of this creep?]**

Kuroro raised an eyebrow at this statement. Lucian sounded as if he had somewhat anticipated it.

"What did you find out, Lucian?"

**[Well…I tasted her blood and all. Smells and tastes like sewer, for the love of God! Anyway, from what I manage to gather, this old hag is not operating alone. There are more of them.]**

"How many exactly?"

**[It seems like they're working for an organization, information brokers or something like that. Just like you predicted. The creeps here—oh, they **_**are**_** Nen users, by the way—are the ones responsible for information and memories gathering. The thing is…]**

Lucian paused as he was actually trying to believe what he was going to say. He himself had a hard time digesting it.

"The thing is?" Kuroro repeated impatiently.

**[They are quadruplets.]**

Hardly a second had passed since Lucian's last word when Kuroro's instinct screamed at him to duck. He followed his instinct, and by doing so he managed to elude the chance of getting some holes on his head. He whirled around and raised his good hand that was still holding his cell phone, shielding his face. He felt some jabs on his arm and one on his chest, and when he looked at his arm and chest he was not surprised to see some needles protruding from them. The needles that had just whirled past his head were embedded on a tree trunk near Kurapika.

**[Lucifer? Lucifer? What's going on there?]**

"Seems like the other sister is here for revenge. I'll call you back again later." Kuroro said curtly as he quickly hung up and shoved his cell phone into his pocket.

Just as he took out his pins and held them in his fingers, he felt his arm going numb. His fingers then turned slack and the pins fell from his fingers. Kuroro narrowed his eyes at this.

_Paralyzing poisons? Lethal dose, on top of it,_ he mused in annoyance.

Kuroro looked up and stared at the old woman standing at another corner of the forest. She had a look of fury on her wrinkly face, but she had not canes with her. It seemed that her weapon of choice is needles. Her bird, he vaguely noted, was nowhere to be seen—if all four of the quadruplets had similar birds, that is.

The old woman shrieked in uncontained anger and hurled more needles at him. At the same time, a cry could be heard from the sky and a bird swooped down towards him. Kuroro bent his knees in preparation for a jump, but his legs turned weak and he could only stagger. Just as he cursed inwardly, he heard the diving bird giving out a cry of death and the clinging noise of metal against metal. He also heard the graceful swish of chains that sounded very familiar to his ears.

Kurapika had used her Nen chain to ward off the onslaught of needles towards Kuroro. While her one hand was busy controlling the Nen chain, she used her other hand to pluck out the needles embedded on the tree trunk and hurl them at the birds. They hit both birds' bodies and the avian quickly succumbed to the lethal poison. They dropped to the ground and twitched several times before finally they lay motionless.

She had composed herself enough to engage properly in battle. She had concluded quickly that the needles were poisonous, judging from the way Kuroro inadvertently dropped the pins from his fingers. She might hate him for all she knew at the moment, but she would not let him die in the hands of some deranged old women. If he was to die, it would be by her hands.

"YOU LITTLE—!" The old woman shrieked as she produced more needles from the folds of her gypsy outfit.

She threw them at Kurapika and once again she perfectly deflected them. Kuroro observed her as he plucked out the needles on his arm with his teeth; his right arm had been rendered useless by the poison. He had decided to fall back for the time being and leave the rest of the fight to Kurapika.

Kurapika kept deflecting those coming needles as she grabbed Kuroro's discarded pins from the ground. With a precise flick of her wrist—she was surprised by this trained move of her wrist—she sent those pins towards the old woman. As she predicted, the old woman jumped and Kurapika took this golden opportunity to hurl the last needles that she had procured from the tree trunk towards the creepy witch.

For a moment she had thought that the old woman was going to deflect them by using the extension clothe of her gypsy attire, but suddenly there were sparks in the air and the old woman looked as if she was electrocuted for a fraction of second. It was all that it took for the needles to make their way right to her body.

The old woman dropped to the ground and twitched for several seconds until she finally ceased moving at all. Kurapika assumed that she might be dead, and did not bother to check. Somehow, she did not feel _that_ bad for killing that old woman. She wondered why.

All those aside, she also began to wonder as the 'persistent presence' inside her chest had started to grow weaker. It did not feel as if it was disappearing; it was more like _it_ was being clawed and shredded slowly and torturously. It was not pleasant at all, worse than ever, actually.

There were faints of hoof-beats from distant as Bara ran back to them with his passengers safe and sound on his back. Kuroro knew that the credit went to Bia for distracting the old woman, and it appealed him to know that she had a good sense of a kind in her mind. She seemed quite attuned to fighting condition.

"Very well done, Kurapika." Kuroro said cheerfully, and he would have clapped his hands if only he had them intact and functional.

However, as situation required it, he had to sit reclining against the tree with least movement possible and with his arm supported with his propped knee at the level of his heart to prevent the poison from spreading further and wreaking further unwanted havoc in his body system.

"She's your first kill after so long."

Kurapika flinched at his words, and he saw it.

"What do you mean, 'so long'?" She turned and scowled at him.

"You've killed people, Kurapika. You know it." Kuroro said airily as if they were discussing the weather. He knew that he was not supposed to be taunting her, but he could not help it.

"I only killed your Spiders." She said defensively.

"Not so." Kuroro smiled at her, and it sent shivers of dread down her spine. "You've killed a man in our travel before."

Though she paled at the mention of her killing people, she heaved a secretive sigh of relief when he said '_a_ man'. So anxious she was about the prospect of her killing people that she missed the '_our_ travel' part.

"Only one, right?" She walked towards him warily.

"One." Kuroro nodded, and added slightly sinisterly, "But that's only _you_ doing the killing. You haven't counted the number of people who died _because_ of you." He had the Mammon in his mind when he said that.

Kurapika widened her eyes in disbelief.

"What do you—"

"MOM! DAD!" A shrill, childish voice intercepted both Kurapika's words and her train of thoughts.

Bara decelerated to a saunter and finally stopped near Kuroro; who by then was already sitting on the ground and leaning against the tree trunk rather wearily. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, and a needle was still on his chest. Meta and Bia jumped off Bara's back and they ran towards the duo. Meta rammed his body right to Kurapika's legs while Bia looked somewhat contemplatively between Kurapika and Kuroro back and forth. It seemed; as Kuroro noted, that she was observing the situation and making a sense out of it.

"Mom! Did you really lose your memories? Do you remember me?" Meta bombarded her quite mercilessly.

Kurapika blinked her eyes several times and Kuroro sighed. The boy was only making things more difficult.

"I, I—" Kurapika looked at Kuroro and found him staring at her with a kind of emotion in those obsidian eyes.

"You don't remember…?" Meta's shoulders sagged in disappointment. He then turned to Kuroro and froze when he saw him. "Dad! Your arm!"

"Quite slow, aren't you?" Kuroro chuckled darkly at him, and turned to Bia when he saw her extending her hand to the needle on his chest. "No, Bia. Don't touch the needle with your bare hands. It's poisonous."

Bia pouted but nevertheless she obeyed him as she used her outer skirt to pull the needle off Kuroro's chest. Meta looked at Kuroro's torn left shoulder with dread. His eyes turned ablaze in scarlet then, and Kurapika noticed its glow in the darkness of the forest. She took the boy's face in her hands and lifted up his face so that she could take a better look at his face.

"Scarlet Eyes."

"I get it from you…" Meta said in blatant disappointment, and he began sniffling. "But…why's Dad like that? Mom?" Meta tugged at Kurapika's sleeve, but the latter was too distracted to answer the boy's question.

Kurapika's brains felt frozen. It was as if all the gears and wheels inside her brain had been clogged and turned off forcedly; a very obvious information over-loading. The boy kept spouting the words "Mom" and "Dad" constantly between her and Kuroro, and it was as if she had turned as dumb as a newborn infant. It was so hard to put two and two together at the moment.

Finally, Meta seemed to give up as he ran to Kuroro and buried his face in his good shoulder.

"It can't be helped." Kuroro told him with low, tired voice. "You know the situation, don't you?"

The boy said nothing as he hid his face and faint sobs could be heard from him. Kurapika's shoulders slumped. She did not know what to do, or what to say, or what to even think.

_**Oh my,**_ Bara's out-of-place cheerful voice broke the tension for a moment,_** Kuroro-boy, is this your arm over here that's bleeding river?**_

"Oh." He completely forgot about it. "Bia, help me get my cell phone in my pocket."

Kuroro told her to search for Shalnark's name in the name list and she did just so. She dialled the number and pressed the speaker to Kuroro's ears.

**[Danchou! I was just about to give you a call. I did the research you told me and I've got some interesting findings.]**

"Find a group with quadruplets in it." Kuroro said flatly. It was not actually his reason of calling Shalnark, but nevermind that. A little digression would not hurt.

**[Oh? Well, that's the one I've highlighted. Four Nen-users with specialty of stealing people's memories and extracting information from them. Three are in charge of gathering the memories, one stay behind in the headquarters to sift through the memories.]**

"Where's their headquarters?"

**[They usually operate per location in certain duration of time. Since the attack on Kurapika is just a few days ago, I think they're still around that area.]**

"Any way to get those memories back?"

**[So they're really the ones who steal Kurapika's memories? Gosh…]** There was a sound of fingers tapping furiously on the keyboards. **[Nope. Unfortunately, there's no information about that. Nobody has ever recovered their memories once stolen by those quadruplets, so far as I manage to find.]**

"I see." Well, in that case this would be the first and last time that someone was getting her memories back from those four. "I'll handle them. Shalnark, you get the coordination of my position now, don't you?"

**[Yep. No problem with that.]** Shalnark said proudly. He had installed a kind of tracking device on all Spiders' cell phones so that it would be easier to send reinforcement to anyone when needed—especially when some Spiders just had plain BAD sense of direction.

"Good. Send Machi to my place. Tell her that I need her sewing expertise." Kuroro said with dark humour in his voice.

**[Uh, okay…I'll contact her right away.]**

"Is it possible for her to reach my place in less than four hours?"

From what limited medical knowledge he had, amputated body parts would start decaying after four hours when they were not cooled. If things got desperate, perhaps he could use his last remaining strength to use the Solomon Ring and teleported Machi right to his place. Though that would be only for the very _last_ resort; Kuroro really disliked using the Solomon Ring at all. The said ring dangled coldly on a chain around his necklace, well hidden underneath his white shirt.

**[Mmm… I think so.]**

"Tell her to hurry."

**[Roger that.]**

The call was ended just like that, and Bia put the cell phone back in Kuroro's pocket. Kuroro then regarded the girl again.

"Bia, has Heen taught you how to stop bleeding with Nen?"

She nodded and stared into Kuroro's eyes intently.

"Good. After you've stopped the bleeding, wrap the wound with a piece of clean clothe to prevent any possibility of infection. Don't bother to clean it in any way, and don't get water on it since it will reduce the chance of reattaching it. Understand?"

Bia nodded her head vigorously, her white hair bouncing up and down energetically. She had just half-turned when she stopped and turned to him again. She wrote:

'_Do you want me to take Meta with me?'_

Kuroro raised an eyebrow at this question.

_How very thoughtful of her,_ he mused. He nodded at her, and Bia quickly dragged a whimpering, whiny Meta away from Kuroro. Meta started muttering gibberish amidst his sobs and sniffs, and Kuroro did not bother to listen closely to him. He turned his attention to a very confused Kuruta—who happened to have closed her eyes with a mixture of feelings on her face. He could not really pin point the exact emotions, but anyway he did not give a damn about it at the moment.

"Pull yourself together, Kurapika." He said, his tone rather scolding.

Kurapika's eyes snapped open and she looked at Kuroro with something that was akin to…determination? Kuroro was not sure.

Wordlessly, Kurapika walked to his side and touched his pretty much useless arm lightly. She stared at it for a while, and Kuroro observed her silently. She seemed to be thinking hard.

Her eyes had been fixed to the silver ring that was encircling his ring finger. The aquamarine blue was glowing red, and so was her silver-onyx one. Curious as she was about the nature of those rings, she decided not to think about it for the moment. There was something more urgent to attend at the moment.

"They are poisonous, right? The needles…"

"Evidently so."

The frown on her forehead deepened. She noticed the 'persistent presence' kept going weaker slowly. Was it telling her something?

"Take off your suit."

While Kuroro raised a questioning eyebrow at this sudden commanding tone, he did it nonetheless. He was curious to see what she wanted to pull off. Kurapika, surprisingly gently, took what remained of the black suit off him and put it on the ground by her side. Next she unbuttoned the cuff and; with one strong pull, ripped the sleeve all the way until the elbow. She also took off his ring and kept it in her pocket. She did them to eliminate the possibility of the clothing getting in the way in case the arm swelled due to the poison.

All the while, Kuroro kept observing her working with so much focus and concentration. It was endearing to see her work that hard for him, especially knowing that she had no recollection of what had happened between them for the past eight years. To be honest, he had this twisted pleasure in seeing her getting so confused and trying to adjust to the situation since at least she was not rejecting everything. At least she was trying to ascertain the truth before simply refusing to acknowledge them. It was most obvious when she saw Meta, though…

Kurapika took the piece of sleeve from his shirt and it into make-shift bandage. She tied it around Kuroro's wrist and up to his elbows tightly; enough to stop the poison from spreading beyond his arm and towards his heart; if it had not already done so, but loose enough to allow arterial blood flow (away from the heart).

She then looked around in search of any wooden stick that was sturdy enough to make a splint out of it. To her dismay, there was none nearby.

"And we don't have water." Her voice sounded annoyed enough.

"It's fine. This poison won't make too much damage on me, much less kill me." Kuroro said calmly, and even with slight tone of amusement in his voice.

"How come?" Kurapika eyed him in disbelief and suspicion.

"It's just my body." He shrugged faintly. He could not go on telling her about Ishtar's blood, could he? If he did so, she would start claiming that the poison was getting to his head.

"Like a monster." Kurapika scoffed.

Kuroro snorted in amusement at this. If only she knew that she shared the same 'monstrous' blood in her body, but the present amnesiac Kurapika would faint with white froth in her mouth if she was to be told so without preparation. The Kuruta huffed; disgruntled by his lack of reaction, but she picked up Kuroro's suit and used it as a make-shift bandage to cover the exposed flesh and bones of his left shoulder. She made sure that the 'bandage' was secure as she tied the knot around his torso below his right armpit.

There were soft muffed sounds of footstep and hoof-beats approaching them, and Bia emerged holding Kuroro's arm in her thin arms as if she was holding an exceedingly fragile glass trophy, with Meta following her like an extension of her body, and with Bara sauntering behind them. The black unicorn looked very towering and intimidating compared to the small children. The stump of the 'amputated' arm was neatly dressed—neater than Kuroro had expected out of her—and it was perfectly blanketed in her Nen to prevent blood loss. Meta was half-hiding behind her and was still sniffing. He refused to look at Kurapika, and Kurapika found herself feeling disturbed by this.

_**Your girlie here really knows how to do her stuffs. Man, it creeps the sanity out of me,**_Bara commented.

"Good job." Kuroro told Bia with a thin smile. "The forest is cold at night, so I guess that will prolong the shell life of my arm. Put it on the ground, the soil will help cool it further."

Bia nodded and put it gently by Kuroro's side. Kuroro then blanketed the said arm with his Nen to stop the bleeding since Bia had let go of it. Meta tugged at her skirt from behind, and Bia frowned at him over her shoulder, as if scolding him non-verbally. He tugged harder, and Bia rolled her eyes. She turned to Kuroro and wrote:

'_Meta has a question.'_

"Which is?" Inside, Kuroro was more than weary. The boy just knew how to ask the hardest questions.

Kurapika was staring at her; she was obviously taken to see such unconventional method of communication—though she was actually the one responsible for teaching Bia how to write in the first place. Bia hesitated for a while, and her next writing came slowly and uncertainly.

'_Did you really kill Mommy's people?'_

_**Ouch…**_ Bara cringed.

Both Kurapika and Kuroro froze.

"How—"

"He has empathic ability. You've been repeating those lines in your heads since the beginning, right?" There was no accusation in Kuroro's voice; it was merely a statement of the truth and Kurapika could not refute him. "I guess he took a glimpse of those thoughts in your head when he was holding you earlier. And your negative feelings that come with it."

'_He asks if it was a mistake.'_ Bia said again with a frown. She herself was not very happy with that revelation, and was wondering if it was true or not. She had never heard of it from anyone before.

Bara looked at the couple with very much interested eyes despite the awkwardness of the situation. For him, this was an added bonus of entertainment. Kurapika was gaping like a goldfish that was lacking oxygen, but Kuroro beat her to giving an answer.

"Unfortunately, it was not, Meta. I didn't make a mistake. I planned it, I executed it." He turned to look at his firstborn; who was peeking from Bia's back. "I don't regret it."

With wide teary eyes, he looked at his father while wedging his body tight to Bia. The white-haired girl frowned at Kuroro's choice of words. Kurapika had visibly stiffened and had averted her eyes to the ground; there was eerie red glows coming from beneath her black contact lenses.

"Plans are made, actions are executed. There will always consequences out of those." Kuroro continued. "The last thing to do—the only one we can do—is to face those consequences."

He felt a tug on his shirt, and turned to look into Bia's intense hazel eyes. She raised a finger and wrote:

'_Are we…one of those consequences…?'_

Kuroro was not surprised to see these words coming from Bia; he knew that it was her question, not Meta's. Her body might be that of a teenage girl, but her mind was developing far more rapidly than her body was. It was as if her mind was catching up with the years that had passed when she had been confined in the tank of Bensalem.

The pale man could only offer her a small smile; but Bia found it strangely comforting though perhaps to other people it would look far from that. Perhaps subconsciously she remembered that her being rescued from a certain hell-hole was actually part of the consequences of the massacre of the Kuruta clan…in the long term.

"Yes." He said softly.

Bia smiled broadly at him.

Suddenly, there were a lot of noises coming from one corner of the forest. The children tensed up, and so did Kurapika, but Kuroro kept composure. From the sounds of it, he could tell that two particularly noisy people were coming back.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong>__ Another cliffy end. By all means guess what news the two will be bringing to Kuroro and Kurapika. Good news or bad news? Speculate all you want XD __Oh yeah, if you still haven't noticed by now, the 'persistent presence' inside Kurapika is Kuroro's Nen._

_HAH! So now Meta and Bia knows about their (literally) bloody past. Pfft XD_

_Most importantly: reviews! XD No review, no update! *bulldozer-ed for threatening*_


	3. Deliverance

_**Disclaimer: **__Still the same tragedy: not mine. Phooey._

_**Story so far:**__ Lucian and Yorn were coming back from their hunting of the so-called old witch, and they brought news with them. Bad news? Good news?_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3 <strong>

_**DELIVERANCE**_

* * *

><p>He had smelt the blood since miles away, and he had been alerted by the thickness of the scent. He wondered just how badly wounded Lucifer was; he was rarely wounded at all since the first time he had known him. Well, maybe he blundered this time round, but just how bad was that mistake? Was it the 'wrong time, wrong place' thing?<p>

"Oi! What's the rush?" Yorn complained behind him.

"Is your sense of smell damaged? The smell of blood is so overwhelming I can barely stand it." He snorted in disbelief.

"I do smell it! It can be just that old hag's blood, right? Considering that guy's occupation, he could've shredded her into pieces, for all I know."

"The thing is, my dear darling Yorn, this is Lucifer's blood, not that old hag's!"

"Seriously?" Yorn's big eyes widened to their maximum size.

Lucian only rolled his eyes and refused to decrease his pace. If anything, he increased the speed of his walking until he was half running. Yorn complained some more but she did increase her pace with more enthusiasm this time round.

When they emerged into the spot where they had left Kuroro and Kurapika earlier, Lucian made a funny retching sound as the smell of blood was particularly strong there. If the smell of the blood had been normal, he would not have been that affected. The problem was that Kuroro Lucifer's blood was only half-normal; with Ishtar's blood mixed in it.

"For the love of God," he swore as wrinkled his nose in disgust and he looked around for a particular friend of his, "it stinks like—WHAT IN THE NAMES OF SEVEN FREEZING HELLS HAPPENED TO YOU?"

Kuroro raised an eyebrow as Lucian dashed towards him like some angry mother hen while covering his nose—as if he was going to die a horrible death if he inhaled the air even a bit. Before he could reach Kuroro, however, Meta had dashed from behind Bia and tackled his leg.

"She doesn't remember…" He whimpered to him.

Lucian felt as if he was having a huge meltdown.

"Oh, you poor heartbroken thing. I understand how you feel." Lucian bent down and patted Meta's golden hair as soothingly as he could. He gave the boy a sympathetic smile. "It hurts, huh? I feel the same." Meta gave a small nod and buried his face in Lucian's trousers.

"I thought you should have guessed by the thick smell of blood in the air. You are especially sensitive to the smell of blood, aren't you?" Kuroro commented rather incredulously, answering to his previous question that was phrased rather…amusingly.

"Yes, yes!" Lucian got up and approached him, and Meta had returned to his previous post behind Bia. "I thought maybe you only get cut or slashed a bit or nicked or, or—or anything else except for getting your whole arm and a tiny wee bit of your shoulder amputated! _Ca dracu Aş aştepta asta!_ (like hell I'd expect that)" He bent down to look at Kuroro's piece of arm that was put on the cold ground. "Ouch…Nasty."

"Don't you have anything better to say that that? Idiot." Yorn clucked her tongue.

"For someone who's been nothing but useless, you talk big." Lucian said almost absentmindedly as he took a medicine box from his travelling bag and took a blood red pill out of it. "Want this, Lucifer?"

"Not necessary." Kuroro said flatly.

"You sure? You've lost a lot of blood, mind you." Lucian waved the said pill in front of Kuroro's face, as if tempting him.

"No. This isn't the worst I've ever experienced."

"Sure, tough guy. _Cum spui tu_ (whatever you say)." The vampire shrugged and put the pill and the medicine box into his pocket.

Kurapika had been staring at the medicine box and Lucian's travelling bag for a while. She could see that he had stocked some first aid kit and some suspicious-looking drugs or medications inside that bag.

"Do you have a kind of antidote, then?" Lucian heard Kurapika asking him unsurely, and a tad bit hopefully. He knew that despite his easy-goingness around her, she was still wary. Trust her to be very, _very_ wary just around everyone.

"Antidote? What, you're poisoned now, Lucifer?"

"As you _should_ have seen." Kuroro pointed out.

"Fine, fine. I'm being inattentive." Lucian rolled his eyes.

"Look here! I think the needles here are the cause." Yorn said as she picked one needle with one gloved hand and held it up for Lucian. Lucian sniffed it and immediately wrinkled his nose.

"I know this one. I think I have an emergency antidote, hopefully it woks for this particular poison." He muttered as he began rummaging through his travelling bag.

"What's the side-effect?" Kuroro gave him a wry glare. While he knew that Lucian's drugs were highly effective, they tended to have some funny side-effects as well.

"Oh, the usual. You know; drowsy, cranky, sluggish, slight fever." Lucian shrugged. "Here you go."

As Kuroro opened his mouth slightly, Lucian flicked the capsule with his fingers into his mouth. Kuroro quickly swallowed the capsule before it started melting inside his mouth and leaving a bitter aftertaste that could screw his taste bud for the next full week—that happened the last time he took Lucian's antidote carelessly.

"Anyway, what to do now? I've found that their 'lair' is just around the corner. To get Kurapika's memories back, we need to go find the 'leader' and squeeze the information out of her. The other triplets don't know anything about getting the memories back."

Lucian scrutinised Kuroro as he spoke. He was pale beyond usual, and he could practically smell the fever from him. Either his drug was already working, or Kuroro's own immune system was already fighting the poison inside his body. Kuroro was silent for a while as he organized his thoughts, but he was having a hard time doing it since a particularly annoying headache had decided to strike him. His senses were dulled and his minds felt cloudy.

"I think we should get the kids somewhere else. They are shivering like dry autumn leaves there." Yorn said as she shot the children a pitying look. "There's a town nearby. Maybe we can take them to the inn there?"

_**She's right. The blond runt has been sneezing quite a few times by now,**_Bara said, and as if to emphasise that point, Meta sneezed once. _**See?**_

"Well, they are certainly not dressed for an outdoor sleepover." Lucian scratched the back of his head. "I think we should get them to the town. Lucifer can't stay here the whole night, either. His fever's already coming."

"Wait." Kuroro said with rather sluggish voice, and his chin was rested on his chest in a very tired manner. "There's no time. The other one should have noticed that her three sisters are dead by now. If she ran away, it would make things more difficult and all these troubles would be for nothing."

"I'll take them to the town." Kurapika suddenly declared. Kuroro raised his face slightly to stare at Kurapika. Kurapika looked at Lucian, and then at Yorn. "Can you two take care of the rest?"

"Sure, no problem, Ma'am. Question is, how are you going to take all three of them to the town? Lucifer's half-crippled now. I don't think he can even stand upright properly now." Lucian crossed his arms.

Kurapika licked her dry lips nervously and turned to look at the black horse that was still standing behind the shivering children; much like the children's solid fortress, as she noted.

"…Bara…right?"

_**Hey, you remember my name?**_ Bara raised an invisible eyebrow at this.

"No. He mentioned your name once before." Kurapika said while glancing at Kuroro from the corner of her eyes.

"Scary memorising capacity. That's the Kurapika I know." Lucian whispered to Yorn.

"She's that awesome?" Yorn raised both eyebrows in astonishment.

"Can you carry all four of us to the town?" Kurapika asked carefully, as if she was treading on a land full of mines.

_**Sure no problem, Ma'am. These two runts don't even count as one grown-up,**_ Bara snickered as Bia glared at him. _**And since Kuroro-boy there is poisoned, he can't have too many rough movements, right? No problem with that. I can just fly us smoo~~thly over the forest.**_

Kurapika obviously was shell-shocked to hear that a Unicorn—yes she had noticed that Bara was one earlier—could fly. She decided not to voice it out loud, for fear that she might just embarrass herself.

"O—okay…"

"Woah, woah, there. Kurapika, are you sure you can handle it? I mean, four people on one horse?" Lucian waved his hands hastily.

"From what I saw earlier, these children seem to have adequate equestrian skills. I think they can manage on their own." She turned to the children. "Can you?"

Bia nodded her head vigorously, and Meta gave a tiny nod. Kurapika could not help but to sigh discreetly as she noted how downhearted the boy—one who looked terribly like her deceased brother and her—was. He looked as if his whole world had shattered into tiny pieces.

"Then it's settled." Kuroro suddenly said from where he was sitting. He looked at Yorn and Lucian. "First priority is to finish things with the last of those thieves. I'll leave her to you."

"Fine if you say so." Lucian shrugged. "C'mon, Yorn. Let's get going."

"Okay…" Even as Yorn turned around to follow a mumbling Lucian, she still cast worried glances over her shoulders.

She saw how Bara had lowered his body to the ground so that Kuroro Lucifer—supported by Kurapika—could get up and mount the said horse. She saw how Kurapika sat behind him, supporting his poison-afflicted body with her own. She saw how Kurapika arranged it so that the children sat just behind her; trusting them completely with their riding skills that they had claimed to master.

Lucian had glanced over his shoulder as well. He chuckled secretly to himself.

The old Kurapika would not have allowed the children to their own devices. This amnesiac Kurapika was actually giving her children certain freedom and the children obviously loved it—even Meta who was still sad.

* * *

><p>"So they are your family? My, I'm so happy for you! So they've found you, huh? Have you recovered your memories, then?" The plump landlady asked her excitedly.<p>

It turned out that the inn was the very same inn that had housed Kurapika when she was found unconscious by the street side. The landlady noticed her immediately and gave her a room straight away. When she saw Kuroro's condition, however, she was so mortified she almost fainted on the spot.

"But it's so sad that your husband is so injured. It must be hard to lose an arm like that."

"W, well…" Kurapika's mouth twitched at its corner.

To hear directly that Kuroro Lucifer was her husband was something that she had a hard time accepting. For the sake of the good-natured landlady, Kurapika had to constantly check her temper.

"I…still haven't recovered any of my lost memories. Maybe they'll come back in due time."

"Yes, I really hope so. Ooh, poor kids… Their mother lost her memories and now their father is suffering from terrible injuries. Makes me want to cry…" The landlady sighed dramatically.

Something inside Kurapika's chest twitched. She said a few more words to the landlady before she declared that she wanted to retire to her—their—room. During the horse-riding—or more like horse-flying—Kuroro had leaned his body against hers. In that close proximity, Kurapika had been briefly frightened when she noticed how her body was not responding in repulsion to the contact. She had expected that she would be disgusted to be in such intimately compromising position, but she had felt otherwise.

Bara had to stay at the outskirt of the forest since he could not possibly parade into the world with his black horn free for everyone to see. It would raise an unnecessary uproar in that small town. Luckily, several metres into the town and some people noticed her and her unusual entourage. Some of them were kind enough to help her carry Kuroro to the inn.

"…Does it hurt…?" A tiny, frightened voice came from the slight crack of the door of their rented room. Kurapika had her hands outstretched, with the intention of opening the door fully. However, she froze and felt compelled to hear this conversation.

"…A bit…" came Kuroro's low, husky voice.

"Which one? Your arm or about Mom forgetting us?"

Even when Kurapika did not look into the room, she could virtually 'see' Kuroro ruffling the boy's hand and giving him a vague smile.

"…It tends more towards the latter, I suppose. Physical pain doesn't really affect me…"

There was a rustle of the bedsheets and Kurapika could imagine the boy climbing the bed to sit or snuggle next to Kuroro. There was an interval of silence; one that seem to torture Kurapika, before Meta spoke up again.

"…Why did you kill Mom's people…?"

"…There are a lot of reasons. You won't understand now, Meta."

"Try me."

"No. I'm not telling you now." Kuroro's voice sounded final; tired as it was, and the boy seemed to sense it as well since he did not push the matter further.

"Then… Has Mom forgiven you about it?" There was a hopeful tone in the boy's voice.

"…I believe so…" Apparently the boy had shot him a suspecting look, because Kuroro added, "I really do."

Suddenly, the 'persistent presence' inside her chest dropped very low; so abrupt it was that Kurapika had to blink in shock. At the same time, from inside the bedroom there were more rustling of bedsheets, and there were the soft pitter-patters of light footsteps. Before Kurapika could react—pretending that she had not been shamelessly eavesdropping—the door was flung open and a tiny figure had burst out of the room. To Kurapika's relief— she had no idea why she felt relieved—it was Bia instead of Meta. Bia looked at her with her big, round hazel eyes, before she softly closed the door behind her. She approached Kurapika and lifted a finger.

'_Why are you crying?'_ she wrote.

"Huh?" She knew she sounded dumb, but she could not help it. She raised a hand and touched her cheek. The tip of her fingers felt the warm wetness trickling down her face. She had not even realised it.

Bia walked forward and hugged her leg. She then looked up and wrote:

'_You will get your memories back, Mommy. I am sure of it.'_

Even as Bia wrote so, her small hands trembled and her eyes were glassy. Kurapika knew that the little girl was holding back tears and emotions despite her blank expression. Kurapika knelt down and pulled the girl into an embrace.

"How did a sweet girl like you end up with us?" She whispered, not exactly to Bia. She knew by instinct that this girl might have been adopted at one point of time.

Bia clutched at Kurapika's shirt as she pressed her face to the crook of her neck. She felt like she had gone back in time, like her early days when she was still carried by Kurapika's arms like a helpless infant. She might not show it, but she was scared to death by the prospect of losing her only Mommy…

"Why did you go out of the room, by the way? You couldn't have sensed me here, could you?" Kurapika asked as she drew back.

Bia's eyes then widened as she realised that she had digressed from her initial 'mission'.

'_Daddy! High fever!'_ She wrote frantically, not even bothering to write a proper sentence.

Kurapika's heart skipped a beat, but she acted fast. She got up and stormed into the room. Kuroro was still leaning against the wall while sitting on the bed with his right arm on his propped knee, but his head was rested on his chin and his eyes were closed. Meta looked as if he was close to a nervous breakdown as his whole body was quaking. Kurapika quickly ran to the bedside and put a hand on Kuroro's forehead. It was burning.

"You two stay here. I'll ask the landlady to get us a doctor." She told the children without even looking at them.

Kurapika dashed out of the room and down the wooden staircase; making a whole lot of commotion out of it. The landlady was quick to answer to her calling.

"What's wrong, dear?"

"Doctor! I need doctor!"

"O—okay. Come with me, I'll take you to the doctor so you can explain the situation."

So they both ran out of the inn to the house of the town's doctor. Inwardly, Kurapika wondered why she bothered to slave herself like this for the sake of the murderer of her people. Before her mind could logically tell her to just let that man rot to Hell, her body had reacted so fast she completely ignored the said cold logic.

* * *

><p>Machi stood on the rooftop of one of the houses in the town. It was not hard to find this town. The new system that Shalnark had installed for them was very convenient, to say the least. She could easily pin point the exact location of her Danchou by looking at the new GPRS system in her phone. Navigating her position in relation to the map of the town, she concluded that Danchou was staying in the local inn. She dashed there without further ado.<p>

Shalnark had briefed her about Kurapika's case of stolen memories and she had rolled her eyes at the news. Of all the troubles she could attract, it had to be _this_. It was a lie, though, if she said that she was not worried about Meta. The boy was particularly sensitive, what with that empathic ability of his. The news about Danchou needing her 'sewing expertise' was also disturbing her. Danchou had never been so careless as to let someone just chop off his limb. It had to be the Kuruta's mistake, or maybe the kids. It could not be Danchou's fault.

She tried detecting Danchou's Nen, and was surprised that she sensed the fluctuation of his Nen. Whatever the cause was, Danchou had to be in really terrible state. She had never sensed his Nen this…erratic.

Machi quickly reached the inn and searched for the room where they were staying. Effortlessly, she found it and raised her Nen slightly to announce her arrival. Only God would know what the ex-chain-assassin could pull off when she was suddenly alerted by the presence of one Spider. Better be safe than sorry later.

The window was promptly opened and Machi slipped into the room. It was Kurapika who had opened the window, and she stood by the window with a trained expression on her face. Machi could see that she was having an inner struggle, so she decided not to bother her lest her control broke.

"I'll leave him to you." She heard the Kuruta murmuring to her.

Kurapika hastily left the room and closed the door behind her almost inaudibly. Machi stared at the door for a while, contemplating her words before she focused her attention to her Danchou.

And she was _VERY_ displeased with the state he was in.

"Danchou." She said with small voice and a deep frown.

Kuroro looked up and gave Machi a smile; as if encouraging her.

"You're just in time. The arm is here. It should be still in good enough condition." He said while nodding his chin to the direction of his arm—which was lying on the table next to the bed.

Machi took the arm and took off the make-shift bandage. She inspected the wound and nodded.

"It's perfectly re-attachable." She said as she walked to the bed. "What happened, Danchou?"

"Long story." Kuroro chuckled. "Sorry Machi, but I don't think I can move from this spot."

"It's fine. Were you poisoned, Danchou?" She asked as she knelt on Kuroro's left side. She then proceeded with uncovering his amputated shoulder and positioning the arm near it.

"Unfortunately yes." He said, but did not elaborate.

To be honest, he had forgotten that a poisonous needle had scored a mark on his chest. Kurapika had done her best to suppress the flow of poison from his arm, but the one from his chest was a wholly different issue. The combination of the poison, his immune system, and Lucian's antidote inside his body was a bad one, it seemed. That was the reason why his fever had peaked and why it had scared the living hell out of the children and Kurapika.

And with a twisted sense of pleasure he had been appealed when he saw Kurapika's look of panic on her face as she discovered how bad his fever was. Her Nen inside him had twisted and squirmed like a worm sprinkled with salt. She had even run to fetch a doctor (a poor, wheezing old thing that looked like his lungs could collapse anytime) for him. She had fabricated a story about them getting into accident and Kuroro getting poisoned, and the naïve doctor completely bought it.

But of course the doctor had been useless. The only thing that the old man could do was to give him a puny medicine for the fever, which Kuroro had refused to take. An irritated Kurapika was quick to react—she practically forced it down his throat.

_In the end… We are still only humans…_Kuroro thought. True that he was not exactly happy to have a 'monster' blood in his body, but it had helped him through many troubles before. He guessed that Ishtar's blood was already doing its best to prevent the poison—nicely administered from his chest very near to his heart—from ruining his heart permanently. Still, to lay there; vulnerable and prone, was far from what he would like.

_When was the last time I get this sick? _He mused absentmindedly.

"I'll start." Machi said as she raised a needle.

Kuroro watched as Machi did her job; it was always a sight to behold. The needle glinted sharply as it moved in a pattern, giving off silvery trails around the stump of his arm and shoulder. The Spiders rarely needed any surgery, so it was rare to see Machi performing this task.

"It's done." She said as she pulled the string and the arm snapped back to his shoulder.

The Spider Head tried moving his left arm once Machi had cut off her Nen thread from his arm, and it moved according to his will though rather awkwardly and stiffly at first. There was a tingling sensation around the spot where his arm had been severed, but that was all.

"The wound should close in a few hours." Machi said.

"I see. Thank you for a job well done. I suppose I owe you several billions Zenni by now." Kuroro chuckled as he flexed his fingers more. "I presume this is one of the hardest surgeries you've ever performed so far?"

"It is the hardest one." Machi said with even voice as she observed her Danchou warming-up his newly re-attached arm. "And if you insist on paying me, you can pay me with Kurapika's money."

Kuroro raised an eyebrow as he looked up at his Spider.

"I daresay it was her fault that you got into this." Machi shrugged and her face showed that she had no intention of changing that thought.

"Well, you can certainly look at it that way." Kuroro said with amusement.

"So what about her memories?" Machi asked carefully.

"Lucian is taking care of it. We'll just need to wait until he's finished."

Lucian might not be a part of his Genei Ryodan, but he was someone that Kuroro Lucifer regarded in high esteem combat-wise. He would get things done—his style, of course.

* * *

><p>The two of them crouched on one of the branches of a big tree in the forest. They had found the quadruplet's temporary hide-out, and it was none other than a small run-down hut. Yorn had scoffed that it really suited them; looking like some voodoo old witches and all.<p>

"So what's the plan now?" She whispered to him.

"Hm…"

Suddenly, the door of the hut was opened and rushing out of it was an old lady. She looked more refined than the other three, and saner if her tidy appearance was anything to go by. Her face looked horrified to the extreme, and she looked as if she could get a heart-attack anytime. Lucian narrowed his eyes as he observed all these.

"Yorn, cover me."

"Roger." Yorn murmured as she took out her crossbow.

The Unicorn girl used to employ conventional bow and arrow, but with the Hunters Association paying regular visits to her tribe, some of the personnel had been upgrading her weapons for better efficiency—and she was grateful to Kurapika for that. Had Kurapika not come to her tribe and put her tribe under the company's protection, her tribe would not have flourished as much as it did now.

Besides, she still had something to give to Kurapika; and it was something she could only give once she had recovered her memories.

Lucian nodded at her and then jumped off the branch. He landed noiselessly with a grace; it seemed as if he had just floated down there instead of jumped, and started stalking the old lady. He saw her holding something close to her bosom at all time, as if it was the most precious thing on Earth.

"W, who's there?" The old lady suddenly spun around and raised a metal cane to Lucian's direction.

"Good evening, Madam. What are you doing in a solitary place like this?" Lucian asked amicably, but there was a kind of eldritch aura seeping off him.

"I—I can ask you the same thing! Who are you?" The old woman's hand began shaking.

"Mmhm. I have a business with you, of course." Lucian's eyes then suddenly glowed eerily blood red. "You see, you and your sisters have put my friends in quite a lot of predicaments. So, I want a full compensation from you."

The vampire then grinned broadly; revealing the row of pearly white teeth. His canines glinted especially cruelly.

_And it has become a personal issue for me,_ he added in his mind.

The old lady gave a pitying shriek, and there was an avian cry coming from above. A bird swooped down from the dark night sky, aiming for Lucian's head. Before it was anywhere near the man, however, a few arrows had flown from among the trees and pierced right through the head, neck, and abdomen of the bird. It gave a death cry and fell dead to the ground.

"Oh my, you obviously have no combat skill whatsoever. You've been depending on your outrageous sisters too much, it seems." Lucian chuckled pleasingly, but to the old lady it sounded like the voice of the Devil himself. "Now, Madam…"

The pale man suddenly disappeared from her sight. The old lady looked around in panic, trying to spot that creepy man when a cold breath brushed her nape from behind.

"…Would you be so kind as to allow me the pleasure of peeking into your soul and mind?" He whispered to her ears as he put two ice-cold hands on her shaking shoulders.

The old lady did not even have the time to cry when her world was plunged into silence, red, and black.

* * *

><p>The children were fast asleep on the bed, hugging each other closely. They were both exhausted by the night activities, but the blond boy was obviously scarred by the whole ordeal. There was not a single time when he would look at Kurapika without a haunted look. If he was really empathic, then perhaps she could not blame him for being so scared of her. She had been filled with thoughts of revenge and hatred concerning the massacre of her clan, after all. For a little boy like him to be exposed to such strongly negative feelings…<p>

Kurapika suddenly looked up. She sensed the presence of the female Spider moving away from the inn. It seemed that she had finished with whatever surgery Kuroro had told her earlier. She then recalled the time when the doctor had gone back home after giving Kuroro a drug for the fever. The landlady had volunteered to look after the children for her, since she thought that it was not good to keep the children in a room with a sick person.

"_Haaa… So annoying…" Kuroro breathed out. "This is so…annoying…"_

"_It's annoying to be so weak, huh?" She could not resist mocking him._

"_Exactly…" He still managed a chuckle. "Reminds me…of the time when we were stuck in that cave."_

"_What cave?" She eyed him suspiciously._

"_I was down with tetanus…" Kuroro rested his forehead on his right forearm. "…and you nursed me…"_

_Kurapika gave a horrified look on her face; but Kuroro did not see it._

"…_at least until Shalnark came with the medicine…"_

_Kurapika eyed him with torn expression. _

"_What happened to…us…eight years ago?" She asked him carefully._

_Kuroro lifted his head slightly so that he could look into her eyes and study her expression._

"_I'm not telling you…" He decided and went back to his previous position. "It's pointless…" He was too tired to tell her the long story._

"_But—"_

"_You'll recover your memories in due time, anyway…" _

Kurapika frowned deeply. He seemed so confident that she would recover her memories sooner or later. Also, she would be beyond ignorant if she had not seen how the man had tried to look after the children even when he had been severely incapacitated. It had not been expressive, but it was there.

How she had managed to notice those gestures was also another question.

With a sigh, Kurapika got up and took the clean shirt on the table. The landlady had handed it to her earlier when she fetched the children. The kind woman had offered the shirt for Kuroro's change since his shirt was beyond repair.

She hesitated slightly when she stood in front of Kuroro's room. She raised a hand and it hung in the air for a while before she finally knocked on the door.

"Come in." Came the clear voice from inside. Kurapika frowned as she noticed that the voice was stronger than before.

When she stepped in, she was surprised to see him exercising his now-attached left arm, though he was still restricting any movement from his right arm and the rest of his body. He turned to her and gave her a smirk.

"See? I told you it's going to be back to normal." He told her smugly.

"Hmph." She donned a mask of irritation, though inside she was somewhat relieved. "Since now you're so fine, you can change your clothes yourself then."

Kurapika walked towards him and tossed the new shirt to the bed, not unkindly though. She then crossed her arms defiantly and glared at him. Kuroro regarded her with a mock hurt expression.

"You are impossible, Kurapika."

Kurapika rolled her eyes.

"Just because you're sick, I don't have to cater to every single one of your whim."

"Is that so? A pity." Kuroro closed his eyes and sighed over-dramatically.

Kurapika narrowed her eyes at him. Inside her guilty conscience was kicking her inside, and she was struggling to fight it off. After all, he was in this sorry state because of her. If he had not pushed her aside, she would have been cut into two identical halves like a ripe melon.

In the end, she lost the fight.

"Insufferable bastard…" She muttered to herself as she snatched the new shirt from the bed and unbuttoned it rather furiously.

"I know. You always tell me that." His mood had definitely improved since he got his arm safely secured with his shoulder. With his left hand, he unbuttoned his soiled shirt.

"Do I?" Kurapika raised an eyebrow.

"Mmhmm." He hummed as Kurapika began peeling the bloodstained shirt off him.

Kurapika looked at the shirt with obvious disdain and folded it carefully so that the bloodstained part was inside the fold. She had already troubled the landlady so much, she did not want to dirt the floor with blood; though the one on the shirt had pretty much dried. She began putting the shirt on Kuroro silently. His eyes never wandered from her as she did all those; and he knew that it made her uneasy but he ignored it.

"You know…" Kuroro started; his eyes still observing her as she was buttoning up his shirt.

"What?" She responded rather waspishly; irritated for being observed as if she was an amusing zoo animal.

"I killed your people and stole their Scarlet Eyes."

Kurapika froze. Why was the man bringing up that topic now? Because the children were not around? Before long, her hands started to bristle.

"But I was also the one who helped you collect back all those Eyes."

She snapped her head up and glared at him; accusing him of lies. Her eyes had turned majestically Scarlet Eyes and Kuroro—again—took this opportunity to admire those eyes. Kurapika had never been keen on showing him that beautiful shade of her eyes, especially because they were the bitter reminder of the start of their bloody relationship.

"And now I've helped you in continuing the bloodline of the Kuruta."

Kurapika had had enough of it. She was about to get up and storm out of the room when a strong grip ensnared her wrist and pulled her back to the bed. The grip quickly detached itself from around her wrist and caught her chin. He forced her to look at his face. Kurapika then found herself staring into those obsidian eyes of his.

"You may have forgotten the past eight years. If the worst case scenario happens—where your memories can't be restored—"

Kurapika blinked. So he did consider that possibility? And what was with the slight tremble in his voice when he said that?

"Then at least remember this: I did take everything away from you, Kurapika." He told her with husky voice as he leaned forward until their faces were a few inches apart. "But I give you everything back."

Her eyes darted between the pair of eyes back and forth, searching for lies and deception; but she found none of them. She pressed her lips into thin line, before finally she opened her mouth.

"And you expect me to believe you?" She felt foolish for trying to self-suggest herself that he had lied to her.

"Of course it's up to you to believe me or not." Kuroro released his hold of her chin and drew back. "But at least, do it for the sake of the children."

At this, Kurapika dropped her eyes down. The image of Meta's disappointed face haunted her; a face that—to her—looked so much like her deceased brother's, except for the eyes… She was preoccupied with thinking of what to do with the children, when suddenly a kind of pressure assaulted her head at full-force.

Kuroro, on the other hand, saw a flash of light penetrating the ceiling and coming down to Kurapika so fast he had not the time to react. It entered her head and dissipated, and the next thing he saw was Kurapika clutching her head and cursing under her breath.

"For the love of God…"

"What's wrong?" He asked; his voice was calm.

"I felt like I've just gotten the mother of all migraines and vertigos…" Kurapika blinked her eyes, her eyes bleary and glassy from the shock and light-headedness.

"Is that so?" Kuroro raised an eyebrow, and decided to give it a test. "Maybe you should ask for a medicine from Lucian?"

"Hell no! I am NOT going to take any questionable drugs from that lunatic vampire when I'm pr—" She halted abruptly, and then turned to look at Kuroro with wide eyes.

Kuroro smirked, and then laughed.

"Looks like the worst case scenario isn't about to happen, after all." He said with a smile.

"Oh…My God…" She groaned as her face turned deathly pale, and her hands began clawing at her cheeks. "I'm so _terrible_! Oh God…" Her eyes strayed to his left arm. "Kuroro, I…I'm so sorry…"

Kuroro chuckled pleasantly and raised his good left arm. He reached for her head and brought it closer to him. He then rested his temple on her shoulder and closed his eyes.

"It's worth it." He said as his whole body relaxed for the first time since the start of this whole incident.

She was not one for crying; she never was. However, this time round maybe she could be a bit lax with herself—especially so when the missing eight-years-worth of memories had just returned to her. It was as if all fogs had been lifted off her head and she could see the world crystal clear like never before.

"Idiot…" She murmured as she closed her eyes and clung at his shirt as if he was her lifeline.

Kuroro gave a content smile.

"Welcome back."

* * *

><p>She sat in the kitchen while staring at the letter that she was holding in her hand, her elbows on the kitchen counter, with a mug of warm chocolate just in her reach.<p>

Things had returned to normal after the whole memory-loss incident. They had come back to the town pretending that nothing was wrong, and so Fino had no idea about their 'little adventure'. Shalnark had gone off to scold Bara for carelessly taking the children away, and Bara had largely ignored him as the unicorn was telling Una about the whole incident.

Meta and Bia were especially hyper for several days after she had recovered her memories, and they had been ultra clingy to her. At first it was nice, but since Kurapika was a practical person and she had a lot to do, she had to coax the children to 'go and bug your father now'. Oh, the boy also had begged them to explain about the Kuruta massacre, and both Kurapika and Kuroro had told them firmly that they would explain it in due time when they were old enough—and it elicited a really grand pout out of Meta and electric sparks from an unhappy Bia.

As for Lucian…well…When he had come back from his dealing with the last of the quadruplets, Kurapika had rewarded him with a bone-crushing hug and even a kiss (more like a peck) on the cheek. Of course Lucian had been frightened shitless at this sudden shower of affection from Kurapika, and thought that it was an after-effect for the sudden recovery. Well, it was part of Kurapika's plan anyway (to make him stuttering silly like some blushing virgin).

Yorn was wholly glad that she recovered her memories intact because she then could finish her job at long last. She had gone searching for Kurapika since she had a letter to give to her.

"_You remember my brother, Lazmorgh? That jerk is getting married soon, and he's inviting you to the wedding. I've got to wait until you get back your memories otherwise…well…y'know." She shrugged. "Anyway, I hope to see you there. You can bring this lot along if you want to."_

And so that was the reason why she was sitting there in the kitchen late night.

While it was nice that she was remembered by the people of the tribe that she had so-called 'save from extinction', she was not sure about the idea of attending a wedding party. First of all, she was not very keen about going to parties of any sort. Second, the idea of bringing the whole household there just spelled plain TROUBLE.

"Still haven't decided yet? The date is coming soon."

She did not have to turn around to see who was approaching her.

"I don't know. I'm not interested in parties, but I'll feel guilty if I don't go there. Yorn has even gone out of her way to help so that she could give me this invitation letter." She drawled unsurely.

"Well, then make some excuses. You're good at it, aren't you?" He said with a small chuckle as he stood next to her while leaning against the kitchen counter.

"You said it as if I'm a liar." She scowled at him.

"You come up with good excuses; that's what I'm trying to say." He shrugged. "It's a compliment."

"You compliment people in the weirdest way possible." She sighed and rolled her eyes.

She put the invitation letter aside and reached for her chocolate. She twirled her finger around the rim of the mug, before finally taking a sip of the beverage. They remained in the silence for a while, each contemplating their own thoughts while enjoying each other's company.

"You know…" Kurapika broke the silence.

"Hm?"

"I…When I haven't recovered my memories, I was actually…scared. I was afraid that I wouldn't ever get them back."

Kurapika paused and Kuroro stared into the darkness while thinking over her words.

"I thought you'd be glad to forget all the complicated memories and instead focus on your hatred and revenge."

"Oh, please, Kuroro. I have a sense of responsibility." She snorted in indignation. "The scars here on my palms, the ring; something must have happened. I can't just go about ignoring them, can I? Not to mention that it's eight-year worth of memories. Eight years!"

Kuroro laughed lightly at her little drama.

"So," she turned to him with a challenging tone, "what will _you_ do if my memories really didn't return?"

"I'll just get someone to erase _all_ of your memories and tell you that you've lost all of them instead of only a piece of it, and then fill you with only the necessary 'memories'. It'll be easy to persuade your other friends to go along with this scenario, since I don't think any of them agree with your past 'life of vendetta', as the Zaoldyck boy so eloquently termed it once before." He smirked tauntingly at her.

"You have really thought through it back then, haven't you? With all those details…" Kurapika said with a cringe.

"I did. Call it a back-up plan."

"An _evil_ back-up plan."

"But then again," Kuroro looked up the dark ceiling, "perhaps that's not exactly the best solution. You wouldn't be _you_ if you lose all your memories."

"Thanks for the consideration. How I'm so glad that my memories return intact." Kurapika sighed while rolling her eyes.

"The feeling's mutual." Kuroro said with a chuckle.

Kurapika stared at him for a while before finally shaking her head and putting down the mug of chocolate.

"I can't believe it. No wonder my amnesiac self had a really hard time believing that I really put up with you and stay sane until this…" She put a hand on her belly, "far."

Her eyes then turned scarlet for no logical reason. Kuroro observed her visage and those Scarlet Eyes. He vaguely reminded himself that those Scarlet Eyes were the beginning of their ties.

"Maybe I'm already insane." She muttered.

"Mmhmm." Kuroro bent down to level his face to hers, until the proximity of their faces was so close the tip of their noses almost touched each other. "I love you, too."

There was _the_ teasing tone in his voice, and Kurapika's face burst lobster red at this. However, in all the playfulness in his voice, she knew that he meant every word of it. Kurapika let out a smile; a very rare smile of hers.

"The feeling's mutual," she whispered.

And they closed the remaining gap.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>__THERE! Gosh, I spent DAYS finishing this outrageously long one-shot (or three-shot; whatever you call it) =P Actually, I've finished the whole thing before even posting the part XD I hope it's worth it. If you notice, the last scene is the elaboration from the one paragraph in the Epilogue of Angel's Prayer =D I can't believe I actually make them say I LOVE YOU. Though Kurapika didn't really say it out loud and more like implied. Some reviewers asked me to make them say it, so yeah... I hope it isn't too OOC. Hope...*cross my fingers*_

_Reviews are of course very welcomed ^^ *still the same ol' greedy author*_


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